June 21, 1883] 



NATURE 



171 



some twenty years since, the Cinchonas have had 

 showered upon them books and pamphlets innumerable, 

 and where we find such voluminous writings, it would be 

 strange indeed were there not matter of varied quality, 

 and some that could be dispensed with altogether. Mr. 

 Owen's book is very complete in the several branches of 

 Cinchona literature, facts gathered from various authentic 

 sources, such as the works of Dr. King, Dr. Bidie, Mr. 

 Mc Ivor, and the reports of the Indian and Javan Govern- 

 ments, all of which are acknowledged by the author. 



The book is divided into six parts, the first part being 

 devoted to the physiology of plants, gathered, as we are 

 told, from Church and Dyer's " How Crops Grow." The 

 second part treats of the alkaloids, the species and 

 varieties, to which a large space is given, and the next part 

 on the choice of land, felling, clearing, weeding, planting, 

 &c. In the fourth part manuring and harvesting are con- 

 sidered ; and in parts 5 and 6 the diseases to which 

 Cinchonas are liable, and the estimates of Cinchona 

 planting are digested. In all these matters careful details 

 are given. 



The book no doubt will be very useful to Cinchona 

 planters, more particularly the practical part. Its greatest 

 fault, perhaps, is the extent of the book, numbering 

 2 °3 P a g es , too voluminous for many planters to wade 

 through ; but on the other hand it appeals also to those 

 who, though not actual planters, are interested in the 

 progress of the Cinchona culture. 



Kallos, a Treatise on the Scientific Culture of Personal 

 Beauty and the Cure of Ugliness. By a Fellow of the 

 Royal College of Surgeons. (London : Simpkin 

 Marshall and Co., 1S83.) 

 The author desires his book to be taken seriously. He 

 shows that good looks and manners have a commercial 

 value, since those are more likely to succeed in obtaining 

 the prizes of life who can make favourable first impre sions 

 than those who cannot. The first start greatly depends on 

 patronage, and obscure youths who have won wealth and 

 position have almost always been helped by their good 

 looks, good address, and good voice. These are aids 

 of considerable importance to every candidate, whether 

 it be for a place behind a counter or for the suffrages of 

 a constituency. The author considers from a medical 

 point of view how ill-favoured individuals may palliate 

 their defects. He treats ugliness as a disease, classifying 

 its various forms and indicating such remedies as he can. 

 His classes are coarseness, thinness, obesity, vulgarity, 

 wrinkles, defects of circulation, of complexion, and of the 

 hair. Then he takes the features in detail, eyes, nose, 

 mouth, &c. His recipes are not numerous. We learn 

 incidentally that what is sold as lime juice and glycerine 

 for the hair contains no glycerine at all, and that a very 

 popular dressing is castor oil and rum. This would have 

 harmonised with the toilette of the Syrian beauty of old 

 times, whose "garments smelt of myrrh, aloes, and 

 cassia," a very apothecary-like fragrance. The book 

 does not contain practical advice of much novelty, but its 

 interest chiefly lies in directing attention to much that we 

 already know but are too apt to forget ; such as that 

 dissipation, gross feeding, and indolent ways create 

 ugliness of various forms. We know there are bad 

 schools where the boys are slouching, ill complexioned, 

 furtive in expression, and generally ugly, and we also 

 know that there are good schools where, owing to healthy 

 habits and keen and varied interests, the boys are 

 bright, vivacious, and attractive. Similar differences 

 due to different habits of life exist in men ; they are pre- 

 eminently shown by the good effect of drill on a plough- 

 boy or street lounger. We may be sure that those who 

 habitually cultivate a healthy mind in a healthy body, 

 and who study how to please, cannot fail to add to the 

 total happiness of the world and to secure for themselves 

 a better chance of succeeding in it than their more 

 negligent rivals. 



The Nat Basket. (Printed for the Editress and Pub- 

 lisher, Mrs. Eleanor Mason, at the Albion Press, 

 Rangoon, Burmah.) 



We hope that the subscribers to this extraordinary pub- 

 lication are content to give to it their money and nothing 

 more. It is designed, we are told, to show the natives 

 that there is no contradiction between Scripture and 

 science, but if they believe that what is presented to 

 them in the Basket is science they are much to be 

 pitied. Such a medley of misstatements, absurd etymolo- 

 gies, and false astronomy was never before met with out 

 of Bedlam. If this is the stuff that is taught the Burmese 

 by our missionaries, the sooner the latter return home the 

 better. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 



[The Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions expressed 

 by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to return, 

 or to correspond with the writers of, rejected manuscripts, 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications. 



[ The Editor urgently requests correspondents to keep their letters 

 as short as possible. The pressure on his space is so great 

 that it is impossible otherwise to insure the appearance even 

 of communications containing interesting and novel tacts.] 



Deductive Biology 



In the few remarks which I communicated to this journal 

 (vol. xxvii. p. 554) under the above heading, I protested against 

 the deductive method used in a purely literary manner as a 

 mischievous way of attacking biological problems. Mr. Wil- 

 liam White objects that if I am right the deductive method 

 must be excluded altogether "as a false and dangerous element 

 of philosophy." I do not myself see that this necessarily follows. 

 The pith of what I said simply amounts to this — the biological 

 sciences not having reached the deductive stage, it is not possible 

 to enlarge our knowledge in them by mere ratiocination. This 

 is I apprehend no more than is laid down by Mr. Mill himself. 

 Writing of the conditions under which the deductive method is 

 applicable, he expressly says that without one indispensable 

 adjunct "all the results it can give have little other value than 

 that of guesswork " ("System of Logic," 4th ed. vol. i. p. 498). 

 The indispensable adjunct is verification, which requires the 

 substitution of the work-table for the desk. When the former 

 has put the stamp of confirmation on the speculations elaborated 

 at the latter we get a scientific result which commands attention. 

 Without this confirmation I am still of opinion that the deductive 

 result is only "a literary performance." It is worth noting 

 that the able writer whose papers and method I took the liberty 

 of criticising so far admitted the validity of what I said, that he 

 promised to have some experiments made which would go a con- 

 siderable way towards demolishing or sustaining the results at 

 which he had so far arrived only deductively. 



As it would be a rather arduous undertaking to follow Mr. 

 White over all the other ground covered by his letter, 1 will 

 only refer to one point. He asks whether "comparative 

 embryology" is not "founded entirely upon the method of 

 deductive analogy." I am certainly myself under the impression 

 that it would be difficult to pitch upon any area in science in 

 which the knowledge we possess has been more conspicuously 

 gained by persistent investigation or one in which generalisations 

 have more often crumbled under the pressure of fresh results of 

 observation. It is the section-cutter, and not the desk, which 

 has won the victories in this field. At the present moment two 

 of the most skilled of our younger embryologists (with funds 

 furnished by the Royal Society) are on the point of starting, one 

 for the Cape, to study the embryology of Peripatus, the other to 

 make a similar attempt in Australia on the earliest phases of the 

 life-history of Ornithorynchus and Ceratodus. They would hardly 

 perhaps engage in so laborious a quest if it would answer equally 

 well to stay at home with a ream of paper, and, say — without any 

 disrespect to the eminent author — a copy of the writings of Mr. 

 Herbert Spencer as "a base of fundamental truth" to start 

 from in the analogical deduction of the embryology of these 

 organisms. W. T. Thiselton Dyer 



Your correspondent, Mr. William White, has not, it seems 

 to me, a correct appreciation of the words " deductive " and 



