420 



KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[May 15, 1885. 



pamphlet a description of various recently-discovered 

 vegetaV)le substances, useful either as foods, in the arts, or 

 as medicines. A coloured plate of the Kola-nut forms the 

 frontispiece. 



In the Watches of the Nvjht : Poems. (In eighteen 

 volumes.) By Mrs. Horack Dobell. Vol. VI. (London : 

 Remington i Co. 1885.) — Here the authoress has it out with 

 her critics, some of whom, in 'Arry's refined phrase, "get it 

 hot." This is the way that Mrs. Dobell deals with one 

 unfortunate creature, whose Bceotian duluess must have 

 prevented him from recognising the Divine afflatus in her 

 " poetry " : — 



Had he been — Inim I hum ! hum ! — so that his eyes 

 Were slightly "obfuscated" ! — and his brain 



Rather too wandering to be quite as wise 

 As usual— but this point we will not strain. 



How that critic will writhe when he reads this refined — 

 if scathing — sarcasm ! 



^^ ^^^^C^ 



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THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE. 



[1703]— The concluding sentence of No. VIIL on this snbject 

 (p. 36C) expresses exactly my opinion. " Articulate speech has 

 grown up with the mind of man, and could not exist without it." 

 But above I read, "his mental superiority nhich hat been attained 

 in the struggle for existence." The words I have italicised beg the 

 whole question. Let others judge whether it has been proved that 

 this »'a.s so attained. I think otherwise. 



Later, it is written that language is to man as the evil smell is to 

 the skunk. Why not say man is to language as the elephant to 

 his trunk ? 



" All animals that have survived have been enabled to do so in 

 virtue of developing a protection against adverse surrounding 

 circumstances. " 



Is this so? I thonirht it was the contrary, i.e., that there are 

 myriads of species which have no special — certainly no imitative — 

 development, and relatively few which have. What is the dcreloped 

 " protection against adverse surrounding circumstances " possessed 

 by the lion, whale, eagle, crocodile ? I cannot even admit that it 

 is strength ; the tiny monkey, the fly, the flua, the worm, have no 

 defence whatever, yet survive. 



" Development in man has taken place by way of the nervous 

 system ; he has gained brain force." I say again, it is not demon- 

 strated that he got his br.ain-force by development. I in no way 

 advocate " the special creation of man." I simply say that, given 

 man, there you have everything potentially which he has since 

 advanced to ; that he has developed language, not language him — 

 I.e., I differ from the writer as to which is cause, which effect. 

 As to survival — is there not a tendency to underrate the obstinate 

 fecundity of nature ? Herodotus tells us (Lib. II. c. 66) that there 

 would have been no cats in Egypt had not the toms killed all the 

 kittens ; also that the cats wonld have eaten up the country but 

 for the same thing. These app.arently contradictory statements are 

 thus reconciled. The male cats found the f(^malcs drove them 

 away when they had kittens. The toms, disliking this, killed the 



kittens, and so obtained restitution of conjugal rights. He says" the 

 kittens" simply, which logically means "all the kittens." But, of 

 course, a few must have escaped ; and it was these few only — not, 

 " the fittest," of course — whicli sufiiced to keep up the race in great 

 abundance. Here was a peculiarity developed by a species, tend- 

 ing more to its extinction than its survival. 



I beg to add that Herodotus tells us also there were tribes of 

 men in his time who had no language— were atpuroi. How did 

 these survive ? 



" The elephant alone has a trunk ; therefore he has survived." 



" Man alone has articulate speech ; therefore he has survived." 



I declare that these two statements are exactly parallel. 



In a word, I asserted, in my first letter on this subject, that 



man's position is due to his mental superiority alone (however 



attained or manifested). This is taught in this paper, No. VIII. ; 



but (I cannot help saying) it seems to me there has been a slight 



change of front. I certainly did not attack what I myself maintain. 



Hallyaeds. 



DARK TRANSIT OP JUPITER'S IVth SATELLITE. 



[1704] — In last week's Knowledge we had a letter from Captain 

 Noble, communicating the results of Dr. Spitta's observations of 

 the transit of the IVth satellite of Jupiter, on the 18th ult. 



Having witnessed the event with a 3J-inch Wray, of most excel- 

 lent definition, and being favoured with one of the beSt nights for 

 seeing Jupiter, as well as for dividing close doubles, I give thi^ 

 results : — Turning my glass on Jupiter at 9 p.m., I found the 

 satellite near the centre of the planet; in colour, it seemed of :i. 

 deep neutral tint. I thought, at first, it had an oval form, with its 

 major axis pointing north-west. 



Getting into that state of repose necessary for critical observa- 

 tion — mind and eye becoming only a register of what appears— the 

 disc of the satellite seemed cjuite round. 



When one-fourth of distance from rim its colour seemed toned a 

 little with the colour of the belts, and fainter; at one-sixth from 

 rim it was becoming difficult to hold in colour, and had no percep- 

 tible difference from colour of belts ; shortly after this I lost it. 



1 turned the instrument on the doubles o Cancri, <5 Gemini ; both 

 were well seen, but I could not find the lost satellite again. I did 

 not wait to see it come. G. L. Bkown. 



ADULTERATION OF DRUGS. 



[170.j] — In your "Editorial Gossip" (Knowledge, April 21, 

 1885), speaking of fraudulent substitution, you say : — " This is akin 

 to the behaviour of a chemist who makes up a prescription (on 

 which the life or death of the patient may hang) with adulterated 

 drugs." 



To knowingly dn snch a thing is, indeed, most reprehensible ; 

 and I do not think I exceed the truth in saying that a very smab 

 percentage of chemists can he found who would lend themselves tn 

 wilful adulteration of any kind. But let us for a moment inquiic 

 into the real meaning of making up medicines with drugs whicli 

 can be guaranteed pure. The Materia Medica includes roots, bark.*-, 

 leaves, gums, resins, and many other natur.al products, botli oi 

 home and foreign origin, all of which may be, and often are, 

 adulterated before they leave the countries producing them. In 

 addition to these, the name of chemical products is legion, any of 

 which may, by accident or design, leave the hands of the largf 

 manufacturing chemist in an impure state. There must always bn 

 many things which the retail diuggist mnst purchase, since it i" 

 idle to suppose that he can, for instance, grow his own poppies and 

 obtain therefrom opium of his own manufacture; so also is ii 

 ecjually impossilile for him to make his own carbonate of soda and 

 snch things. What, then, nuist he do in order to be sure that h" 

 never administers to any ]ierson in a medicine substances other 

 than those ordered by the doctor ? Simply this : he must care- 

 fully analyse all things which lie buys before putting them into 

 stock. Now, this means that lie must be a skilful analytical 

 chemist and a good botanist. To bring the retail druggist up t.i 

 this standard has ever been the aim of the Pharmaceutical Society. 



But if the public wants the pharmacist to be a specially educated 

 man, it is only fiiir that it should offer something in return. Tlu- 

 only possible way to do this appears to me to be to grant to qualified 

 men a monopoly of the sale of drugs and medicines. By granting 

 this to chemists as a class, and at the same time insisting upon 

 their being res])()usible for the purity of their wares under a heavy 

 penalty, the imblic will be, indeed, benefiting itself. The ill or 

 dying will not lose their last chance by the failure of a remedy at 

 a critical moment, and the public will get its medicines pure in 

 sjiite of itself. 



At the present time, the passing of the Pharmaceutical ex- 

 aminations merely confers on a chemist the right of placing the 



