33^ 



NATURE 



\August II, 1 88 1 



be done?" He sees his patients dying around him for 

 lack of the knowledge which can only be obtained by 

 experiment, and cannot but demand that the right 

 to perform su:h experiments should be conceded to 

 those who have qualified themselves for the task. There 

 are those who say that, instead of trying experiments 

 on the lower animals, medical men should experiment 

 upon themselves ; but, as Prof. Virchow points out, 

 " Medic il men are already more exposed in epidemics 

 of all kinds in the performance of their duties in hos- 

 pitals, in the country, in their nocturnal visits to the sick, 

 in operations and necropsies, than any other class cf the 

 community as a rule ; and it requires all the blindness of 

 the animal fanatics to require also of them that they 

 should test on their own bodies the remedial, or poi- 

 sonous, or indifferent action of unknown substances, 

 or that they should determine the limit of permissible 

 doses by observations made on themselves." Nor 

 is this all. Medical men do make experiments upon 

 themselves, and some have sacrificed their own lives in 

 such experiments. But such a method of observation is 

 open to the objection that the sacrifice is to a great extent 

 useless, as the death of the experimenter deprives him of 

 the opportunity of recording the results of his experiment. 

 Not only has the necessity for experimentation upon 

 animals been clearly pointed out in the addresses deli- 

 vered at the Congress, but this International Medical 

 Congress itself, the greatest assembly of men qualified to 

 judge in the matter that has ever been held, has expressed 

 its judgment in the resolution passed, without a single 

 dissentient, at its concluding general meeting : — 



"' That this Congress records its conviction that experi- 

 ments on living animals have proved of the utmost service 

 to medicine in the past, and are indispensable for its 

 future progress ; and accordingly, while strongly depre- 

 cating the infliction of unnecessary pain, it is of opinion 

 that, alike in the interests of man and of animals, it is not 

 desirable to restrict competent persons in the performance 

 of such experiments." 



THE BIBLE AND SCIENCE 

 The Bible and Science. By T. Lauder Bruntoii, M.D., 

 D.Sc, F.R.S., &c. (London: Macmillan and Co., 

 iSSi.) 



THIS work is in the form of seventeen lectures, which 

 appear to have been delivered before an orthodox 

 audience. Their scope is a wide one, ranging from 

 sketches of ancient Egyptian and Israelitish life to the 

 newest results in biological science. The principal object 

 of the book is professedly that of showing how Darwinism 

 is not antagonistic to Christian belief in general, or to the 

 Mosaic account of creation in particular. But although 

 this is the peg, so to speak, on which the course of lec- 

 tures is made to hang, occasion is taken to devote the 

 main part of the work to rendering in a plain and popular 

 form an epitome of the leading facts of animal and vege- 

 table morphology. This part of the work is admirably 

 done. Indeed we do not know any writings of this 

 nature better calculated to accomplish their object of 

 making science easy to the general reader ; and as the 

 spirit is throughout tender, not to say sympathetic, 

 towards traditional beliefs, the book deserves a large 



circulation among the always increasing class of persons 

 who desire to learn, with a small amount of trouble and 

 without fear of stumbling upon any cloven hoof, what 

 biological science has done, is doing, and is likely to do. 

 In a word, this part of the book, besides being written in 

 a very graceful style, well exemplifies the truth that no 

 writer is so able to serve up to the general public the facts 

 of science in a palatable form as one who is himself a 

 practical worker in the subjects which he expounds. In 

 the interests of scientific education, therefore, we should 

 like to see " The Bible and Science '' pass through ar 

 number of editions. 



Coming now to what is professedly the main object of 

 the work, opinions of course will differ as to the success 

 which has attended Dr. Brunton's efforts. And here il 

 may be observed, first of all, that it is not very clear what 

 the author himself thinks about the deeper topics that 

 underlie his expositions. Apparently addressing an 

 audience of the straitest sect, he judiciously steers 

 clear of all topics save the one immediately before him, 

 i.e. showing that the doctrine of evolution is not incom- 

 patible with that of the Mosaic cosmology ; and although 

 this is perhaps more effectively done than by many pre- 

 vious essayists, there is nothing to show that he is not 

 adopting the method of St. Paul, which he commends, 

 who " graduated his instructions to the people whom he 

 was addressing, first giving them milk, and afterwards 

 strong meat " (p. 358). Of course in this there is nothing 

 to find fault. Because a man sticks to a text which does 

 not happen to contain a confession of faith, we have no 

 reason to object that he does not publish his religious 

 opinions ; only we think it well to point out that such is 

 here the case, for any reader who is careless or obtuse 

 might fail to perceive the adroitness with which Dr. 

 Brunton steers his discussion among the rocks of dogma. 

 At every point where we feel inclined to ask what our 

 author himself believes, we virtually fall into a dialogue 

 with him such as that with which is told of another 

 eminent man — " What is your own creed ?" " The creed 

 of all sensible men." "And what is that?" "Sensible 

 men never say." 



But whatever Dr. Brunton's creed may be, his book 

 everywhere breathes with such a genuine, and indeed we 

 may say pathetic, appreciation of the beauty of the biblical 

 writings and the nobility of religious belief, that if he 

 fails to strike a chord which through all changes and 

 chances is ever ready to vibrate deep down in the bass of 

 human nature, we have only to commiserate the reader 

 who has departed so far from the best and the purest of 

 human emotions. Having travelled through Palestine^ 

 and knowing his Bible as thoroughly as his science. Dr. 

 Brunton gives us some beautiful little sketches of Bible 

 scenes, hghted up by numberless interesting suggestions 

 derived from modern science, as well as by the glow of a 

 singularly vivid imagination. Take, for instance, the 

 following : — 



"Never in my life do I remember a pleasanter moment 

 than when I sat down on one of these, and looked at the 

 scene before me, for this was the realisation of my child- 

 hood's dream ; this was the spot where Joseph had lived. 

 Yonder might have been the granaries where he received 

 his 'orothers ; here, in the neighbourhood, stood his 

 house, where he returned, weary of his day's work, and 

 was received by his lovely and loving wife Asenath, 



