NATURE 
[ DECEMBER 10, 1896 
is placed in the denominator of the second term. The ex- 
pression is 
tT, = A — B/(z +c). 
That this is capable of giving results of very considerable accuracy 
is shown by its application in the case of the spectrum of helium, 
these results being given in the Verhandlungen der Natur- 
jorschenden Geselischaft tn Basel, Band xi. Heft 3, a ‘* Separat- 
abdruck” of which paper we have before us. All six series of lines 
in the spectrum have been computed, and in every case the 
differences, observed minus calculated, are small. Terr Balmer 
describes also a method by which the line series can be 
graphically constructed. 
DETEE: 
“LINCEL” AND EXPERIMENTAL 
SCIENCE 
(a accepting the invitation to deliver an address on the twenty 
first anniversary of the revival of this Academy, when it 
added social and philological science to mathematics and 
physical and natural science, I have from the outset not ignored 
the difficulty of my task, which I have since found even greater 
than I expected. Nevertheless, a consideration of the work 
done by the first Lincei, who founded this most ancient of all 
existing scientific Academies, and a notice of their contribution 
to the progress of all experimental sciences, particularly biology, 
appeared to me a subject worthy of your attention. 
Federico Cesi, founder of the Lincei, leaving Rome in 1618, 
handed over to D. Virginio Cesarini, and Giovanni Fabri, Fellows, 
the mission of giving the ring of the Lincei to Carlo Muti. 
Cesarini subsequently wrote to Cesi that he had instructed 
the newly-elected Fellow in the usages and rules of the 
Academy, and ‘‘ particularly in the liberty of conscience, love of 
truth, confession of ignorance, and also, so far as my poor in- 
telligence can, I have not failed to open to him the true founts of 
human science, not dialectic but real, praising mathematics and 
natural science as the sole and only principles by which to gain 
knowledge in this world.” The extract, which I have taken 
word for word, shows clearly the method by which alone the 
Lincei believed scientific truths could be sought out ; and we 
should -have known it more exactly but for the loss of a manu- 
script, by Cesi, on the ‘‘ Universalis rationis speculum in quo 
universalis ars continetur.” Still, we do know that at the first 
meeting, held October 15, 1603, Giovanni Eckio described the 
operation of the mind, by which it proceeds from facts to 
conceptions ; that is to say, he spoke of induction. 
The Lincei were not content with philosophising, but made 
experiments on subjects pertaining to natural and medical 
science ; and set themselves to observe and calculate the motions 
of the stars. To this end they provided apparatus and instru- 
ments, including the telescope and the microscope, which latter 
they were the first to use, making known its advantages 
in the study of botany and zoology. The first print of a micro- 
scopic object is that by Francesco Stelluti, representing the 
honey bee, and placed as frontispiece to the 4fpzardum by Cesi, 
published in 1625. 
The Lincei were also the first who instituted experiments to 
solve the question of the generation of living objects from 
putrefaction, an opinion then universally held. We find that 
Cesi was the first to recognise the animal nature of sponges, 
corals, and fresh-water polypi ; that he maintained there was a 
gradual transition between the three natural kingdoms, and that 
he discovered fossil wood. For their method of pursuing science, 
the Lincei were persecuted from their very first meeting in 1603, 
and so bitterly. that they were obliged to separate and keep 
apart for several years. The Lincei had been preceded by 
Leonardo da Vinci, who held induction to be the only legitimate 
method in natural science; by Andrea Vesalio, who had over- 
thrown Galen, insisting on the direct study of human anatomy ; 
and by Niccolo Copernico, who subverted the Ptolemaic system, 
and established the sun as the centre of our planetary system 
around which the earth and other planets revolve. 
On another side, the ground for scientific research had 
been prepared by the Florentine Platonic Academy, who had 
substituted Plato for Aristotle, and had grafted platonic idealism 
on the growing sentiment of Christian art. It was necessary, 
however, to free science from the spirits of the alchemists, from 
! Abridged translation of an address delivered before the Reale Accademia 
dei Lincei, by Signor Todaro. 
NO. 1415, VOL. 55 | 
the idealism of the neoplatonists, from the teleological argument 
of the scholiasts ; in a word, from every trace of transcendency, 
and of finality, so that the human mind, being freed from, 
prejudices and preconceptions, might be enabled, through the 
study of nature, and by the aid of mathematics, observation, 
and experience, to seek the real causes of phenomena. This 
was the work initiated by the Lincei, this was the innovation, 
deemed bold and dangerous, which gave rise to the new 
philosophy—Natural Philosophy—which in its turn originated 
the great scientific movement culminating in a Galileo, a Bacon, 
and a Descartes. 
Galileo lived in the scientific atmosphere of the Lincei 
(to which Society he was elected in 1615), and he is held to 
be the founder of the experimental school, proceeding with 
steady steps in their ways, inventing valuable instruments, 
and making discoveries of the greatest scientific value. Bacon 
made no experiments, but gave instead the laws of induction ; 
yet living among such surroundings as those of Elizabeth’s 
court, then swarming with alchemists, notwithstanding his 
having combated their philosophy and that of the scholiasts 
with much minuteness, he still believed in spirits, and could 
not unfetter himself from final causes. Bacon has been 
accused of not appreciating with exactness the relation between 
cause and effect, not caring for mathematics, and supposing 
effects the results of one sole cause, which rarely occurs in nature. 
Purely inductive methods do not suffice for natural science, 
for when by them we arrive at one acquired truth, we can from 
this one deduce others by reasoning, and even rise by mental 
theories to more general principles. In this sense great credit 
is due to Descartes, who employed deductive methods, and ex- 
hibited the advantages in the study of nature arising from mathe- 
matics, as had been already recognised by the Lincei, and used 
by Copernicus, by Kepler, and, in conjunction with experimental 
methods, by Galileo. 
To demonstrate the importance of the true causes which act 
on living organisms not solely from their exact value, we might 
adduce numerous examples taken from the progress made in our 
own time by medicine, the most practical and beneficent to 
humanity of all sciences ; for if physics and chemistry have by 
their appliances increased the enjoyments of social life, medicine 
has succeeded in lightening many of the burdens of suffering 
humanity. The terror produced by the announcement ofa great 
epidemic, when it was believed to be a chastisement sent from 
heaven to punish men on earth, ceased from the day when it was 
found to be the deleterious action of minute living objects, the 
so-called pathogenic microbes, and when aseptic and antiseptic 
cure, and the inoculation of attenuated virus and of curative 
serums were discovered to subdue and destroy the infinite 
armies of these imperceptible but deadly enemies to mankind, 
animals, and useful plants. I will not dwell longer on these 
and other victories of contemporary medicine, my only intention 
being to treat of science, which does not take account of utility, 
but is intent on discovering the causes of phenomena. If in 
practical life we must look to the good of humanity in science, 
there can be no special ulterior object of any kind. In medicine, 
however, as in every other science, we distinguish practice, or 
the application of scientific truths to the benefit of humanity, 
from science itself. Medicine reaps the benefit of the whole 
science of life, biology, of which morphology is an essential 
part, as well as that which seeks the true causes of organic 
forms in their origin, growth, and involution. Morphology, 
then, is called upon to solve the problems of organisation ; 
for example, we desire to know why animals and plants leave 
their present form, in what way species differ or resemble 
one another, and in what relation they stand to their ancestors. 
The answer to such queries was at one time easy, but not 
scientific ; when, that is to say, it was believed there was one pre- 
established type in which individuals were formed and species 
fixed, the answer was : that the form was what had been created, 
that consequently species were independent, that their ancestors 
had for their mission only to bear in their loins germs of such as 
they had been themselves, created contemporaneously with 
other matter in determined numbers, and with their form pre- 
determined even to its minutest parts. With this doctrine 
research flagged, nothing was explained, and from the time of 
Gassendi (1592-1655), who was the first to formulate it, up to 
our present century, that is to say, till it was overthrown by the 
doctrine of evolution, our knowledge of living beings remained 
stationary. The science of the organisation of living beings, there- 
fore, commenced when the theory of evolution became prevalent. 
