December 24, 1914] 



NATURE 



445 



of husbandmen, of poor women, of children. 

 Many things are known to the simple and un- 

 learned which escape the notice of the wise." 



In this spirit Galileo opens his dialogues : — 



"The constant activity which you Venetians 

 display in your famous arsenal suggests to the 

 studious mind a large field for investigation, 

 especially that part of the work which involves 

 mechanics ; for in this department all types of 

 instruments and machines are constantly being 

 constructed by many artisans, among whom there 

 must be some who, partly by inherited experience 

 and partly by their own observations, have become 

 highly expert and clever in explanation." 



Three hundred years again, and Faraday, per- 

 haps Galileo's only superior as an experimenter, 

 writes down : — 



'* \^'hilst passing through manufactories . . . 

 we are constantly hearing observations by those 

 who find employment in those places, and are 

 accustomed to a minute observation of what passes 

 before them, which are new or frequently dis- 

 cordant with received opinions. These are 

 generally the result of facts, and though some are 

 founded in error, some on prejudice, yet many 

 are true and of high importance to the practical 

 man. Such as come in my way I shall set down 

 here, without waiting for the principle on which 

 they depend." 



This is indeed the scientific spirit, a long, long 

 way from the schoolmen ! 



Both Bacon and Galileo were good Catholics, 

 and both had sympathisers among the magnates 

 of the Church, including the Popes. Yet both 

 were imprisoned and had their teaching con- 

 demned, and both may be said to have forced 

 their own imprisonment. Relying on their pro- 

 tectors in high places they attacked the orthodox 

 teaching of their times, and with characteristic 

 weapons. Bacon with the bludgeon of savage in- 

 vective, Galileo with the rapier of irony and 

 sarcasm. Yet though suppressed for the moment, 

 their work was not in vain. It was a passage 

 from the "Opus Majus," quoted verbally in 

 Pierre d'Ailly's "Imago Mundi," which Columbus 

 cited as one of his inspirations to the discovery 

 ol the Xew World, and his proposals for the 

 reform of the Calendar bore fruit in the sixteenth 

 century. So, too, when Milton found Galileo 

 practically a prisoner at Arcetri, old, bereaved, 

 grievously ill and blind, it might have seemed 

 that the powers of obscurantism had prevailed. 

 But the very year when he lay broken and dying 

 there was born in Lincolnshire a child, Isaac 

 Xewton, who was destined to bring his work to 

 a triumphant conclusion and place him on a 

 pinnacle of glory. You cannot crush the human 

 NO. 2356, VOL. 94] 



spirit. In these days we may take courage from 

 these two great men, for even though freedom 

 should be trodden under the iron heel of military 

 despotism, which God forfend, it will revive again, 

 and this time it will not wait three hundred vears 

 for its resurrection. 



TOOTH OF MAN AND BEAST. 

 A Manual of Dental Anatomy, Human and Com- 

 parative. By Dr. C. S. Tomes. Seventh 

 Edition. Edited by Dr. H. \V. Marett Tims 

 and Prof. A. Hopewell-Smith. Pp. vi+6i6. 

 (London : J. and A. Churchill. 1914.) Price 

 155. net. 



IF one imagines, for tableau representation, a 

 quickening of the action in the slow-moving 

 epic of organic evolution, a forward position of 

 immense significance was surely in sight when the 

 scaly armour of certain fishes became so elaborated 

 that they went forth muffled in spines to the very 

 lips. And the defence and protection was com- 

 pleted — and something more than these was 

 initiated — when the dermal spines were drawn over 

 the lips and carried into the mouth itself, there 

 to form the beginnings of those wonderfully 

 diversified structures which are known as teeth. 

 Many eminent workers have, along varous by- 

 ways of inquiry, been attracted to, and held by, 

 the study of odontology, and have helped to build 

 up a most noticeable body of scientific knowledge. 

 Tomes 's "Dental Anatomy" still holds the field 

 as, perhaps, the most successful effort to gather 

 and arrange the facts, and present them in a 

 "manual" suitable for students and beginners. 

 The author and his editors are to be congratulated 

 upon the production of the seventh edition, in 

 which the make-up is improved by a larger page 

 and tvpe, and by bringing the matter descriptive 

 of illustrations directly under each figure, instead 

 of at the foot of the page. 



The desire of the editors "to incorporate in 

 the volume the results of recent research " has 

 not brought about the addition of much new 

 matter. But the ordinary student is not likely to 

 be found grumbling before such a well-spread 

 table ; the number of published " note-books " and 

 compilations of the " cram " order that have 

 sprung from the parent work of Tomes shows 

 that he suffers gladly any reduction of bulky fare. 

 The acute controversies that turn upon such prob- 

 lems as enamel formation, dentine innervation, 

 and the homologies of teeth, remain apparently 

 unsettled, and in regard to these and many other 

 disputed points there may be some disappointment 

 that, after the lapse of a decade, the very wide 

 catholicity of Mr. Tomes's interesting discussions 



