Sept. 8, 1870] 
NATURE 
375 
scarlet berry could be seen on the adjoining trees of the common 
kind. A friend informs me that a mountain ash (Pyrus aucu- 
paria) growing in his garden bears berries which, though not 
differently coloured, are always devoured by birds before those 
on the other trees. This variety of the mountain-ash would 
thus be more freely disseminated, and the yellow-berried variety 
of the holly less freely, than the common varieties of these two 
trees.” It appears to me that a hollyberry falling by its own 
weight from the bush would be borne vertically downwards ; 
and though nourished by a soil impregnated with the decayed 
leaves of the parent tree, the young plant would be almost 
entirely deprived of light, and would soon succumb to its more 
vigorous rivals in ‘‘the struggle for existence.” Perhaps in a 
country where but little land is left uncultivated, ‘‘ the great 
majority ”’ of seeds transported by birds ‘‘would be deposited 
on arable or pasture land,” and thus succeed no better than the 
others; but so far as my limited experience extends, the most 
usual positions in which seedlings of the holly naturally spring 
up, seem to be at the bases of steep rocks or of trees whose 
branches are not sufficiently low and spreading to exert an un- 
favourable influence. If Mr. Reeks’s speculations be correct, 
they appear to me to point to the ultimate extinction of the 
species in a state of nature rather than to its gradual modification. 
W. E. Harr 
Mirages 
THE reading ot the two letters of your correspondents in the 
last number of NATURE has called to my mind the fact, which 
may not be generally known to your readers, that mirages are 
of frequent occurrence (and I need not add annoyance) to rifle- 
men, especially ‘‘small-bore shots.” 
The most remarkable case of which I have heard was seen at 
Wimbledon, during the meeting of the National Rifle Associa- 
tion, in July last. The target at the 1,000 yards range is of an 
oblong form, 12 ft. wide by 6 ft. high, and with a bull’s-eye three 
feet square. On lying down to shoot on the level ground, the 
target appeared in a reverse position, with the bull’s-eye running 
through the entire height, from top to bottom, thus— 
H 
} 
aly 
THE SAME .DURING MIRAGE. 
NWitW fran 
TARGET 
12 ffx 6fF 
the quasi-phantom target continually moving from right to 
left, backwards and forwards. But this was only visible when 
lying on the level ground ; for in shooting from a mound about 
four feet high the target appeared quite natural; and what 
seems stranger still, the lateral motion did not follow the direc- 
tion of the wind ; for it sometimes moved with the wind and 
sometimes against it. Friends of mine have seen exactly the same 
phenomenon both at York and at Altcar. 
I have several times, on the range here, seen the bull’s eye 
appear to slide up to the top of the target, or down into the 
ground ; and this latter seems the most common and universal 
form of mirage. 
I need not add, that in all these cases the sun-light was 
intense. W, PERCY SLADEN 
Halifax, Aug. 29 
Kant’s Transcendental Distinction 
Hap I cherished the wish to involve Mr. Mahaffy in a war of 
words (Aoyodnpia), so often degenerating into a war about 
words (Aoyouaxia), his straightforward and sensible letter, 
wreathed with courtesy and generosity, would have extinguished 
it. But, with some desire to justify my own censure, I had no 
such wish ; and now that I know exactly what he had in mind, 
in the examination question, as in the note on page 57 of his 
work, I will say my say as briefly as possible on his view of Kant’s 
** distinctions,” 
I thought, and still think (and here the learned translator 
of Fischer, has misapprehended me), that Kant intended to 
contrast gevera/ Sense (not particular sense, as colours, odours, 
&c.) with Understanding. Otherwise, tlhe repeated reference to 
“Herr von Leibnitz” would be unintelligible. (See Harten- 
stein’s Ed, of the K. r. V., p. 241 ef sey.) Yo suppose, as Mr. 
Mahaffy suggests, that something more recondite, something quite 
radical was meant by Kant, seems to met zratuitous refinement ; 
for a priori elements of sense, as those of understanding, are 
transcendental ; and the distinction would haye only a /ogical 
dillerence ; or, in Kant’s language, it would be a distinction of 
logical, not of transcendental, reflection. No one, I am sure, 
knows better than Mr. Mahaffy, that all transcendental diéstinc- 
tion is the ze ult of transcendental reflection ; and to this the 
doctrine ot ‘Time and Space is a necessary preliminary ; that 
doctrine, ther. »re, is not based on the transcendental distinc> 
tion. I cannot doubt that Kant called the generic distinction - 
between the co aculties (Affection and Function) évazscendental, 
not because ile was contrasting transcendental elements, but 
because the distinction was drawn by ¢ranscendental reflection ; 
ze. reflection which, by the vantage of a transcendental mod o7@, 
refers a conception to this or that faculty. 
Accordingly, we are not called upon to give a more re- 
condite meaninz to the distinction in question in order to 
explain the use of transcendental as applied to it. Rather 
let us bear in mind what Dr. J. H. Stirling pointed out 
to me some months ago, that Kant somewhat loosely 
applies that adjective to other matters besides the a priori 
elements of experience. In fact, he applies it to the said distinc- 
tion and reflection, and also to the thing in itself, an object exer- 
cising an unknown function, feigned to account for a known 
state. The unknown function indeed might be called tran- 
scendental, but the object is in itself a mere nullity. If 
Sensation be referred to the Arck (as Dr. Stirling calls it) 
received by us from the feigned object, that Ack is transcen- 
dental ; but ‘‘das Object bleibt uns unbekannt wd ¢ransscen- 
dente.” We say, then, that the two fornis of sense and the four 
forms of thought (in apperception) are ¢éranscendental and con- 
stitutive of experience; but the object in itself is transcenuent 
and regulative of thought. If Kant departs from his own nomen- 
clature in the case of the noumenon, we need not be surprised it 
he does so in the case of the distinction between sense and 
understanding. 
The bearing of this question on ‘‘Kant’s View of Space ” 
(which was the topic of controversy between Mr. G. H. Lewes 
and Dr, J. J. Sylvesterin the columns of NATURE) is noteworthy 
here. ‘The sensibility, according to Kant, is not spontaneous or 
active, like the understanding. The forms, then (2. the insti- 
tutions of Time and Space), are not, cannot be, products of the 
activity of any faculty, and therefore time and space cannot be 
forms of Zhought in any legitimate sense of the word. Let it be 
used in the widest sense possible; let it stand for the active 
faculty of mind in general; and then it can be proved that Kant 
would have refused to refer to it the forms of general Sense, 
because he denied to general Sense any activity whatever. 
C. M, INGLEBY 
Valentines, Ilford, E., Sept. 6 
Volcanic Agency v. Denudation 
Mr. Davin Forses holds that, in instituting ‘a comparison 
between the relative magnitude of the operations of internal and 
external forces in determining the main external features of our 
globe, we must grant the first rank to the internal, volcanic, or 
cataclysmic agencies, since, had it not been for their operations, 
our globe would have remained without any visible land for the 
rivers to traverse, or the rain and ice to disintegrate and wear 
away.” 
The latter part of the statement cannot, of course, be called 
in question. But does the conclusion necessarily follow? Sup- 
pose I say that a father who died before his son was born, 
ought, as far as that son’s education was concerned, to rank 
before the schoolmaster who taught him, because but for the 
father there would have been no boy to teach; or that the 
quarryman who extracted a block of marble from the quarry 
ought to rank before the sculptor who shaped it into a statue, 
because but for the quarryman the sculptor would have had 
nothing to work upon, In truth, in a case Jike this, it is hard to 
attach any definite meaning to the idea of rank. If Mr. Forbes 
had said that in the task of bringing the earth’s surface into its 
present shape, internal forces have done more work than external 
