224 



NA TURE 



[January 4, 1906 



the medical man has better material for the study of evolu- 

 tion than any biologist has had or can have, for the reason, 

 says Dr. Reid, that the animal about which we know 

 infinitely more than we do about any other is man him- 

 self. And further than this, he maintains that a knowledge 

 of the relation of man to disease has already furnished 

 us with solutions to such problems as that of the inherit- 

 ance of use and disuse, and others which he names. Now 

 if the reader is familiar with Prof. Ray Lankestrr's 

 Romanes Lecture, he will immediately see that great 

 caution must be exercised. 



Prof. Lankester in this lecture showed that, though man 

 was a part of nature, he had separated himself from 

 nature, and had set up for himself a regnum kominis, 

 where, to use Huxley's terms, the cosmic process was re- 

 placed by the horticultural. Man had — if we may use a 

 picturesque expression which has no meaning — disobeyed 

 nature's laws, and had become in Prof. Lankester 's words 

 •' nature's rebel." 



Moreover, it was in the very matter of disease, on which 

 Dr. Reid bases so much, that man had become more 

 different from the rest of nature than in any other respect. 



Disease has no existence in nature apart from man ; the 

 parasite either kills his host or an equilibrium is estab- 

 lished between the two and both continue to live together; 

 whereas in man a state of affairs has been evolved which 

 is entirely peculiar to him, namely, disease. 



Now I maintain that these considerations should prevent 

 us from being too willing, or even from being willing at 

 all, to argue from the data that medical men possess con- 

 cerning the human species, and particularly from the data 

 concerning man's relation to disease, to the rest of nature. 



I am sometimes asked, " Is the knowledge of heredity 

 which you acquire from your experiments with mice likely 

 to be applicable to man?" In my opinion the question 

 which the pure biologist should seriously consider before 

 he accepts the truth of Dr. Reid's contention is, " Is the 

 knowledge of heredity ' acquired by observation on man 

 likely to be applicable to mice? Is that knowledge likely 

 to help him towards a closer acquaintance with the funda- 

 mental nature of living things?" My answer is, that it 

 may do to a certain degree, but not so surely as will the 

 kind of knowledge acquired by the pure biologist — a 

 knowledge of nature outside the regnum hominis. 



Biologists are still very anthropomorphic, and medical 

 men still more so. To the pure biologist man is not a 

 more interesting animal than any other: and, in fact, it 

 might be urged witli some justice that as " nature's rebel " 

 he is less so. I am well aware that this view will find no 

 favour with Dr. Reid. On the other hand, Dr. Reid's 

 estimate of the value of the breeding-pen, as an instrument 

 for acquiring a knowledge of heredity, is likely to find as 

 little favour with the experimental breeder. Yet who can 

 say that the one has more of truth in his opinion than the 

 other ? 



Naturally each one thinks that the point of view from 

 which, and the material with which, he works at a problem 

 is the best, but I am willing to concede to Dr. Reid the 

 point that, considered as material for dealing with 

 heredity, men are nearly as good as mice, if he will allow 

 that mice are nearly as good as men. A. D. D. 



A Suggested Change in Nomenclature. 

 In the Geological Magazine for October, 1904, I gave 

 the name Barypoda to a new order of Lingulates, including 

 under it Arsinoitherium and its allies. It has just been 

 pointed out to me by Mr. W. K. Gregory, of the American 

 Museum of Natural History, that this name was previously 

 used by Haeckel 1" Generelle Morphologie," ii., p. clvii.) 

 for certain groups of extinct marsupiais. It is therefore 

 advisable to suggest another name for the new division of 

 the Ungulates, and I propose that Embrithopoda be 

 employed. 



In the case of a generic name, it is comparatively easy 

 to determine with reasonable certaintv whether it has been 

 previously used or not, but with the "names of higher sub- 

 divisions this is very difficult, especially when, as in the 

 ire ent case, the term has never passed into current use. 

 Cms. W. Andrews. 

 British Museum (Natural History), London, S.W., 

 December 29, 1905. 



NO. 188S, VOL. 73] 



NOTES ON STONEHENGE. 1 

 X. — Sacrf.d Fines. 

 T""* HE magnificent collection of facts bearing on this 

 -*■ subject which has been brought together by Mr. 

 Frazer in " The Golden Bough " renders it unneces- 

 sary for me to deal with the details of this part of my 

 subject at any great length. 



We have these records of fires : — 



(1) In February, May, August and November of 

 the original May year. 



(2) In June and December on the longest and 

 shortest days of the astronomical year (the solstices), 

 concerning which there could not be, and has not 

 been, any such change- of date as has occurred in 

 relation to the May year festivals. 



(3) A fire at Easter in all probability added not long 

 before or at the introduction of Christianity. I find 

 no traces of a fire festival at the corresponding equinox 

 in September. 



We learn from Cormac that the fires were generally 

 double and that cattle were driven between them. 



Concerning this question of fire, both Mr. Frazer 

 and the Rev. S. Baring-Gould 2 suggest that we are 

 justified in considering the Christian treatment of the 

 sacred fire as a survival of pagan times. Mr. Baring- 

 Gould writes as follows : — " When Christianity became 

 dominant, it was necessary to dissociate the ideas of 

 the people from the central fire as mixed up with the 

 old gods; at the same time the 

 central fire was an absolute 

 need. Accordingly the Church 

 was converted into the sacred 

 depository of the perpetual 

 fire. " 



He further points out that 

 there still remain in some of 

 our churches (in Cornwall, 

 York, and Dorset) the con- 

 trivances — now called cresset- 

 stones — used. Thev arc blocks 

 of stone with cups hollowed 

 out. Some are placed in 

 lamp-niches furnished with 

 flues. On these he remarks 

 (p. 122):— 



" Now although these lamps 

 and cressets had their re- 

 ligious signification, yet this 

 religious signification was an 

 afterthought. The origin of them lay in the 

 necessity of there being in every place a central light, 

 from which light could at any time be borrowed; and 

 the reason why this central light was put in the church 

 was to dissociate it from the heathen ideas attached 

 formerly to it. As it was, the good people of the 

 Middle Ages were not quite satisfied with the central 

 church fire, and they had recourse in times of emer- 

 gency tu others — and as the Church deemed them — 

 unholy fires. When a plague and murrain appeared 

 among cattle, then they lighted need-fires from two 

 pieces of dry wood, and drove the cattle between the 

 flames, believing that this new- flame was wholesome 

 to the purging away of the disease. For kindling the 

 need-fires the employment of flint and steel was for- 

 bidden. The fire was only efficacious when extracted 

 in prehistoric fashion, out of wood. The lighting of 

 these need-fires was forbidden by the Church in the 

 eighth century. What shows that this need-fire was 

 distinctly heathen is that in the Church new fire was 

 obtained at Easter annually by striking flint and steel 

 together. It was supposed that the old fire in a 



Lew- 

 From Baring- 

 1 Strange Sur- 



