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1882] | 
moral justification. And to assume that it is so is to beg 
the whole question. 
Only one other argument of an ethical kind remains to 
be considered, and we are sorry to say that it has been 
advanced by Lord Coleridge—sorry because it is so 
childishly weak. It is the old argument that if the 
advancement of knowledge is taken to justify the vivisec- 
tion of animals, as much or still more should it be taken 
to justify the vivisection of men; and in view of the 
horrible possibility thus supposed, Lord, Coleridge ex- 
claims—-“‘I hope that morals may always be too much 
for logic; it is permissible to express a fear that some 
day logic may be too much for morals.’ Logic! Only 
on the assumption that an animal is a rational and a 
moral as well as a sentient creature, and that its reason 
and its morality are on a level with those of man, would 
the argument become logically valid; and it is just 
because the physiologists do “ consent to limit the pursuit 
of knowledge by considerations not scientific but moral,’ 
that they are obliged to draw the same logical distinction 
between men and animals as that which is drawn by the 
Legislature. 
Coming lastly to the side of Religion, Mrs. Kingsford 
concludes her article with a paragraph which we think 
worth quoting, as it may serve to indicate the value of her 
opinions generally : “If I should be asked what is the 
real position taken by the leading champions of ‘free’ 
vivisection, and concealed from the public under the plea 
that the practice conduces largely to the benefit of 
humanity, I would define it thus :— 
“1. Repudiation of the religious and sympathetic 
sentiments, and of the doctrine of man’s moral responsi- 
bility as superstitious and untenable. 
“2. Deliberate determination to dissociate themselves 
from al] but those who join in such repudiation ; and to 
make the practice of experimental physiology on living 
animals a rallying-point for the expression of that 
determination.”’ 
Surely it must appear to Mrs. Kingsford that these 
“leading champions” are adopting somewhat roundabout 
means to secure their very remarkable ends. 
Lord Coleridge asks: “What would our Lord have 
said, what looks would He have bent upon a chamber 
filled with ‘the unoffending creatures which He loves, 
dying under torture deliberately and intentionally in- 
flicted?” And Prof. Yeo answers: ‘‘I cannot imagine 
any such chamber of horrors, any more than I can his 
other hideous suggestion ;’’ and adds that concerning the 
real facts of vivisection as performed in this country, 
“my conscience unhesitatingly tells me that it would 
have met with the full authority and approval of 
our Lord. ... And I like to bear in mind the texts 
which seem to have an accurate bearing upon the 
subject, ‘Ye are of more value than many sparrows,’ 
‘How much then is a man better than a sheep?’” Simi- 
larly Sir W. Gull and Dr. Carpenter support physiological 
research on grounds of Christianity and Theism, and it 
isevident that the religious side of the question really 
hinges on the ethical. If vivisection is cruel, it is also 
irreligious; but if it is the highest mercy, physiologists 
may claim, though from those to whom their work has 
been of priceless value they may not always receive, the 
beatitude of the merciful. 
NATURE, 
wee 
433 
FISHERS “EARTH'S CRUST” 
Physics of the Eartl’s Crust. By the Rev. Osmont 
Fisher, M.A., F.G.S. (London: Macmillan and Co., 
1881.) 
R. FISHER is well known to geologists as the 
writer of various important papers on Mountain 
Chains, Terrestrial Heat, and other physical phenomena 
of the earth. He has in this volume not merely collected 
these papers, but added so much new matter that they 
form only a small part of the book. It deals with those 
regions whither we cannot penetrate, and might be called 
a Treatise on Concealed Geology. 
It has been made a reproach to geologists that their 
mathematics never get beyond the Rule of Three, Mr. 
Fisher may redeem them from the reproach. Indeed an 
unmathematical reader, when he sees pages covered with 
symbols, may be tempted to close the book in despair 
and imagine it a case of pydels dyewpérpntos eigirw. How- 
ever he would not act wisely. If he read steadily on, 
only omitting such calculations as he cannot understand, 
he will obtain many fruitful ideas, and follow several 
chains of sound and careful reasoning. 
After a discussion of the rate of increase of temperature 
met with below the surface of the earth (which he con- 
cludes by adhering to the customary view of a uniform 
rate) Mr. Fisher reprints his former calculations of the 
enormous and overwhelming pressure to which the crust 
of the earth would be subjected, if the interior shrank 
away from it by contraction. The pressure would be 
such as the strongest rocks could not resist. The engi- 
neers of the St. Gothard Tunnel were almost baffled in 
attempting to sustain less than a mile’s thickness of 
yielding rock. What arches or rings, what metal or 
granite would stand two thousand times that stress? 
There can be no doubt therefore that contraction is a 
cause adequate in intensity to contort any strata however 
thick, or uplift any continent however lofty. Adequate 
in intensity most certainly; but has it been sufficient in 
quantity? This question} Mr. Fisher next considers. 
The answer will probably surprise many geologists, 
When the earth first formed a solid crust with a glowing 
nucleus reaching to within a few feet of the surface, the 
nucleus would begin to cool and contract. As it shrank, 
the shell settling down on to it must crush itself inte 
wrinkles. As successive internal portions solidified and 
were united to the solid crust, the remaining nucleus 
would continue to shrink, and the volume crushed out 
from the crust in process of accommodating itself would 
grow correspondingly greater. The wrinkles would be 
magnified. From Sir W. Thomson’s formule for the 
internal temperatures of a cooling globe Mr. Fisher cal- 
culates the total volume of the wrinkles that could have 
been produced by now. He shows that this cannot pos- 
sibly be so much as the fifteenth part of the volume of 
continental elevations above the sea bottom; more 
probably not even the sixtieth part. Though he considers 
the nucleus fluid, while Sir W. Thomson thinks the whole 
globe would have been solid or nearly so, this does not seem 
to affect the correctness of the conclusion. At the same 
time this cause, inadequate for continents, might yet be 
abundantly sufficient for the existing mountain chains, 
and for many predecessors of them. 
