No. r.] THE VERTEBRATE EAR. 237 



F. Physiological. 



Eine hochst wichtige Betrachtung in der Geschichte der Wissenschaft ist die, 

 dass sich aus den ersten Anfangen einer Entdeckung Manches in den Gang des 

 Wissens heran und durchzieht, welches den Fortschritt hindert, sogar ofters lahmt. 

 So hat auch jeder Weg, durch den wir zu einer neuen Entdeckung gelangen, Einfluss 

 auf Ansicht und Theorie. Was wiirden wir von einem Architecten sagen, der durch 

 eine Seitenthiire in einen Palast gekommen ware, und nun, bei Beschreibung und 

 Darstellung eines solchen Gebaudes, AUes auf diese erste untergeordnete Seite 

 beziehen wollte ? 



Und doch geschiet dies in den Wissenschaft jeden Tag. — Goethe. 



1. Introduction. 



2. The equilibration and other theories of the function of the semicir- 



cular canals. 



3. Theories of audition. 



4. The canal organ theory of the function of the auditory sense organs 



of existing vertebrates : physical, physiological, and psychical 

 acoustics. 



In reconsidering the functions of the vertebrate ear from the 

 canal-organ standpoint, a new theory of audition will be devel- 

 oped in harmony, not only with my discoveries in the anatomy of 

 the ear, but also with the generally accepted ideas of the proc- 

 esses involved in sense perception by hair-bearing sensory cells. 

 I believe, however, that we have very slender foundation for 

 forming final judgments of the functional relations of any 

 parts of the internal ear, and that at present what we impera- 

 tively need is not speculation, but experijnentation. Careful, 

 extended, and unbiassed experiments on the sense organs of 

 the lateral line system of the lower vertebrates, to determine 

 what is their function and how it is carried out, and then more 

 experiments on the ear of the less differentiated representatives 

 of our type, to determine what functional changes have arisen 

 during the transformation process, and then finally the combi- 

 nation of the knowledge thus gained with the results of experi- 

 ments upon the human subject. If proof is demanded for the 

 statement that most of the speculation and experimentation on 

 the auditory function, especially as regards its different phases, 

 has led for the most part to ephemeral results, it is easily forth- 

 coming, for there are few investigators who during the last 

 half-century have written on this subject but regret the paucity 

 of facts and the evident insufficiency of the prevailing theories. 



