558 



IV A rURE 



[October 13, 1892 



trolled by reason, and not to make the wrong he has 

 done to science greater by continuing to persist in 

 it regardless of the pubHshed demonstration of his 



error. 

 One curious feature of the whole^opularviewof the anti- 



vivisectionist campaign is the general belief in the good 

 faith of Miss Cobbe. To men of science her methods have 

 been familiar ever since the commencement of the agita- 

 tion, and more especially since they were clearly dis- 

 played in the published trial of Adams v. Coleridge. By 

 the general public, however, she was regarded as a fanatic, 

 but trustworthy. After this, latter-day exposure at Folke- 

 stone to which she has been subjected we hope that such 

 credulity has at last seen its end, for by the production 

 of Miss Cobbe's latest book, "The Nine Circles," and by 

 comparing it with the originals of the scientific papers 

 from which her statements were alleged by her to be 

 taken, Mr. Horsley had no difficulty in convincing the 

 Congress that her statements of facts can no longer be 

 relied upon. 



It is an old story that a lie dies hard, but die it does at 

 last, and the proceedings of the Church Congress have 

 greatly accelerated the end. 



Nothing can do this better thin for scieatific^ inves- 

 tigators to patiently instruct the public. At the Church 

 Congress this heavy task fell on Dr. Riffer, who by 

 way of answer to the vague -hetoric of the Bishops, 

 piled fact upon actual fact until h'ls audience Tshowed 

 how they welcomed the state nents of truth as a counter- 

 poise to Episcopal excommunication. 



The painful position of medical men who can be found 

 willing to sanction such an agitation was well ex- 

 hibited by the action of Mr. Lawson Tait, who having 

 publicly charged Church Congress officials with excluding 

 him from the meeting, was positively proved to have with- 

 drawn himself, the withdrawal being contained in his 

 letter read to the Congress by the chairman of the Sub- 

 jects Committee, the Bishop of Dover. ' 



Lastly, on the broad question of utility, no member of 

 the Church would, we are sure, feel justified in contra- 

 vening the view that the general regard shared by all 

 Englishmen, and expressed in the above-mentioned 

 resolution of the International Medical Congress, for the 

 proper, that is, humane, use of animals, is ample surety 

 that whether for the sake of food or pursuit of 

 knowledge, the object is obtained at a minimum cost of 

 pain. 



The most extraordinary illogicality was displayed on 

 this very point by Bishop Moorhouse, of Manchester, for 

 while declaiming against the killing of animals to gain 

 knowledge, he clamoured for liberty to destroy any num- 

 ber to preserve the volume of his voice. 



But if we were to speak of the illogicality of the 

 anti-vivisectionists there would be no end, seeing that 

 as they do not or will not learn the truth, they live in 

 a circle of contradictions. Suffice it to say, that we 

 beheve the open discussion of the subject at the Church 

 Congress will do more than anything to show the public 

 that the feeling exhibited by the anti-vivisectionists is one 

 of unmitigated hostility to science, and not one of genuine 

 anxiety for the humane treatment of animals devoted to 

 the service of man. 



NO. 1 198, VOL. 46] 



THE NEW VOLUME OF WEI SM ANN. 

 Essays on Heredity. By Dr. A. Weismann. Authorized 

 Translation. Vol. II. Edited by E. B. Poulton, 

 F.R.S., and A. E. Shipley. (Oxford : Clarendon Press, 

 1892.) 



IN this second volume of the new edition of Dr. Weis- 

 mann's essays there are brought together four essays 

 which did not appear in the first edition ; they are in a 

 convenient form, well translated, and well printed. 



Nothing is more curious than the public appreciation 

 of Weismann's essays, for in them is no trim, nicely 

 balanced, carefully elaborated statement of his biological 

 theories. The successive essays appear as they were 

 published. You have the theories in their making, 

 stretching from essay to essay ; alive, contradictory, dis- 

 jointed. This historical method of publication is a thing 

 to delight the student of biology, but, one had thought, a 

 torture to the precisian and caviare to the general ; yet 

 the pubhc continue to buy, discuss, and no doubt read his 

 works. 



In " Retrogressive Development in Nature," Dr. Weis- 

 mann describes cases of vestigial organs or rudimentary 

 functions. To explain the occurrence of these, the trans- 

 mission and accumulation of degenerate characters pro- 

 duced by disuse is unnecessary. In every organ, as in 

 every animal, variations occur ; in every generation 

 unsuitable variations are weeded out, and so the organ or 

 the animal remains adjusted to its environment, or be- 

 comes more perfectly adapted to it. But when a change 

 of habit or of environment occurs, as when an eyed 

 animal takes to living in dark caves, or when an animal 

 that has been saving its life by swiftness comes into a 

 region devoid of enemies, the less far-seeing or the less 

 swift are not more quickly killed than their better 

 endowed neighbours. So far as sight or swiftness are 

 concerned, a condition of panmixia occurs, and the organs 

 of sight and flight slowly degenerate. 



The argument in " Thoughts on the Musical Sense in 

 Animals and Men " is subtle, ingenious, and less familiar. 

 In insects and birds males are the musicians, and sexual 

 selection is a sufficient explanation ; but it is not so in 

 man. However, in the mammalia the organ of hearing 

 is remarkably developed. In the auditory organ of a 

 rabbit there are structural arrangements for nearly two 

 thousand note sensations, while a concert grand piano 

 contains only eighty-seven different notes. For the needs 

 of life, the thousand gradations of sound in the woods 

 and the field, of the hunter and the hunted, the mam- 

 malian organ is adapted. Music itself is an invention, 

 and from the rude melodies of primitive man to the art 

 of Beethoven and Chopin, it has been progressively 

 developed as the intellectual faculties have been 

 developed. 



The third essay, " Remarks on certain Problems of the 

 Day," is specially valuable, as in answer to certain 

 criticisms by Prof. Vines i many doubtful points are ex- 

 plained. Specially to be noted is the clear re-statement 

 of Weismann's contention that the nuclear substance is 

 the sole bearer of hereditary tendencies, and the new 

 evidence for it contained in the researches of Boveri and 

 O. Hertwig. Equally noteworthy is the admission, in 



I Nature, October 24, 1889. 



