3()0 Miscellaneous. 



birth to young hirva^ wliich prospered under the care of the virgin 

 society. All these larvae, at their final transformation, furnished 

 males, in opposition to the larvrc which liad been previously i)ro- 

 duced by the origiu;il mother, and whioli had furnished only females. 

 It may, perhaps, be asked whether a strange fecundated mother 

 may not liave penetrated accidentally into the nests deprived of their 

 mother, and o^•iposited here and there in the cells. To this question 

 Von Siobold gives a decided negative. During the four years wliich 

 ho has devoted to the study of these wasps, he has constantly 

 ascertained that the inhabitants of one nest never tolerate the 

 intrusion of a Polistes from another colony into their society. The 

 instinct of these Hymenoptera informs them that these intruders are 

 only robbers penetrating into their nest to steal the larvce and 

 devour them. It is therefore evident that in PoJiytes f/allica the 

 male individuals originate parthenogenctically from unfecundated 

 eggs. — Zcltschr. fur iviss. Zooloqic, Ed. xx. p. 236 ; Bihl. Univ. 

 March 15, 1870, Bull. Sci. p. 271. 



On Force and Will. By E. A. Gould. 



Scientists are now of accord that " force can neither be created 

 nor destroyed," and that " the quantity of force in nature is just 

 as eternal and unalterable as the (quantity of matter." Its various 

 forms arc eminently convertible, yet utterly indestructible. And to 

 avoid that; fruitful source of disagreement among the ablest men, 

 which has arisen from the ambiguous signification of the word, wo 

 must adopt the meaning which is finding general accei^tance, and 

 define force as " that which is expended in producing or resisting 

 motif n" — thus clearly discriminating between force and its cause. 



In his retiring address before the American Association last year, 

 our honoured ex-presidcut Dr. Barnard presented an argument, so 

 vigorous and clear tliat I see no room for an adequate rejoinder, in 

 opposition to the doctrine which would extend the principle of 

 the conservation of force to the phenomena of consciousness — " a 

 philosophy which at the present day is boldly taught in public 

 schools of science, and which numbers among its disciples many 

 very able men." Ho says, for instance : — 



" Organic changes are physical effects, and may be received with- 

 out hesitation as the representative equivalents of physical forces 

 expended. But sensation, will, emotion, passion, thought are in 

 no conceivable sense physical " (Proc, Amer. Assoc. Chicago, p. 89). 



"• The philosophy which makes thought a form of force, makes 

 thought a mode of motion, converts the thinking being into a 

 mechanical automaton, whose sensations, emotions, intellections 

 are mere vibrations produced in its material substance by the play 

 of physical forces, and whose conscious existence must for ever cease 

 wlien the exhausted organism sliull at length fail to respond to 

 these external impulses" (ibid. p. i»l). 



" Thought cannot be physical force, because it admits of no mea- 

 sure. * * A thing unsusceptible of measure cannot be a quan- 



