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Sept. 29, 1870 | 
NATURE 
445 
1870, would justify me, I think, in calling that reluctance by 
another name. -For in that paper the renowned malacologist 
just mentioned has brought to light the fact that there is another 
sessile and solitary Ascidian, the A/olgula tubulosa, which goes 
through no such tadpole-like stage, as had been supposed to be 
gone through by all Ascidians except the Salpze, which is never ac- 
tive and never puts out the activity which isso remarkable in the 
other Ascidians, but settles down and remains sedentary imme- 
diately after it is set free from the egg capsula, neither enjoying 
a Wanderjahr nor possessing a chorda dorsalis, | We are not sur- 
prised after this that M. Lacaze Duthiers observes that ‘‘although 
embryology may and must furnish valuable information by 
itself, it may also, in some cases, lead us into the gravest errors.” 
Mr. Hancock, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, has sent us a paper upon 
this subject, which will be read duly, and duly noted by us. 
Leaving Malacology, which has not in the United Kingdom 
obtained the same hold as yet upon the public mind that it has 
on the Continent, where, like Entomology, there and here, it has 
a periodical or two devoted to the recording of the discoveries of 
its votaries, I have much pleasure in directing attention to 
two short papers by Siebold in the Zettschrift fiir wissenschaft- 
liche Zoologie (xx. 2, 1870), on Parthenogenesis in Polistes gal- 
lica v. Diadema,and on Pedogenesis in the Strefsiptera. In 
each of these short papers Siebold informs us that adequate room 
and time could not be given them inthe Innsbruck meeting held 
just a year ago, or in the report of the meeting. It is tomea 
matter of difficulty to think what there could have been of greater 
value than those papers in a section of Wissenschaftliche Zoolo- 
gie; it will be to all present a matter of congratulation to learn 
from the venerable professor’s papers that he will shortly favour 
us with a new work on the subject of Parthenogenesis. A fresh 
instance of Parthenogenesis in Dipten, in C/irenomus, has just been 
put upon record in the St. Petersburg Imperial Academy’s 
memoirs (xy. 8, Jan. 13, 1870). 
The subject of the Geographical Distribution of the various 
forms of vegetable and animal life over the surface of the globe, 
and in the various media, air, earth, water, fresh and salt, whether 
deep or shallow, has always been, and will always remain, one 
of the most interesting subsections of biology. It was the 
contemplation of a simple case of geogiaphical distribution in 
the Galapagos Archipelago which brought the author of the 
“Origin of Species” face to face with the problem which 
the title of his work embodies ; and it is impossible that sets 
of analogous and of more complicated facts,—many of which, be 
it recollected, such as the combination now being effected between 
our own Fauna and Flora and those of Australia and New Zealand, 
are patent to the observations of the least observing,—should not, 
since the appearance of that book, force the serious consideration 
of the explanation it offers upon the thoughts ofall whothink at all. 
The wonders of the Deep Sea Fauna will, I apprehend, form one, 
the Commensalism of Professor Van Beneden another, subject of 
discussion, and furnish an opportunity for receiving instruction 
to all of us. The one set of observations is a striking exempli- 
fication of the way in which organisms have become suited to 
inorganic environments, the other is an all but equally striking 
exemplification of the way in which organisms can fit and adapt 
themselves to each other. The current journals have,* as was 
their duty, made us acquainted with what has been done in both 
_ of these directions, and I am happy to say that in the case of the 
Deep Sea Explorations as in that of Parthenogenesis and Spon- 
taneous Generation, anew work, giving a connected and general 
view of the entire subject, is announced for publication. 
One instance of the large proportions of the questions which 
the facts of geographical distribution bear upon, is furnished 
to us in the address recently delivered before the Geological 
Society by its president, who is also our president, aud who may 
have forgotten to refer to his own work (see NATURE, No. 24, 
1870). Another may be found in the demonstration which Dr. 
Giinther, contrary to our ordinarily taught doctrines, has given 
us. (Zool. Soc. Trans. Vol. vi., pt. 7, 1868, p. 307) of the 
partial identity of the fish-faunas of the Atlantic and Pacific 
coasts of Central America ; a third is furnished to us by Mr. 
Wallace’s works passim. 
It would be superfluous, after introducing even thus hurriedly 
to your notice so large a series of interesting and important sub- 
jects as being subjects with which we shall forthwith begin to 
deal in this Section, to say anything at length as to the advan- 
* See Nature, No. 39, July 28, 1870, and “‘ Royal Society’s Proceedings,” 
Aug. 1870, for Deep Sea Explorations, and Academy, Sept. 10, 1870, for 
Commensalism. 
tages to be expected reasonably from the study of Biology. I 
may put its claims before you in a rough way by saying that 
I should be rejoiced indeed if when money comes to be granted 
by the Association for the following up the various lines of 
biological vesearch upon which certain of its members are en- 
gaged, we could hope to obtain a one-hundredth, or I might say 
a thousandth part of the amount of money which has in the past 
year been lost to the State and to individuals through ignorance 
or disregard of biological laws now well established. I need say 
nothing of the suffering or death which anti-sanitary conditions 
entail, as surely as, though less palpably and rapidly than, a fire 
or a battle ; and I might, if there were time for it, take my stand 
simply upon what is measurable by money. This I will not do, 
as it is less pleasant to speak of what has been lost than of that 
which has been or may be gained. And of this latter let me 
speak in a few words, and under two heads—the intellectual and 
the moral gains accruing from a study of the Natural History 
Sciences. As to the intellectual gains, the real psychologist and 
the true logician know very well that the discourse on method 
which comes from a man who is an actual investigator is worthy, 
even though it be but short and packed away in an Introduction 
or an Appendix, or though it cover but a couple of pages, like 
the ‘‘Regulze Philosophandi” of Newton, more than whole columns 
of the ‘‘ Sophistical Dialectic” of the ancient Schoolman and his 
modern followers. ‘‘ If you wish your son to become a logician,” 
said Johnson, ‘‘let him study Chillingworth”—meaning thereby 
that real vital knowledge of the arts and sciences can arise only 
out of the practice of reasoning ; and as to the value of actual 
experimentation as a qualification for writing about method, 
Claude Bernard and Berthelot are, and I trust will long remain, 
living examples of what Descartes and Pascal, their fellow- 
countrymen, are illustrious departed examples. (See Janet, Revue 
de deux Mondes, tome Ixii. p. 910, 1866.) 
I pass on now to say a word on the working of natural science 
studies upon the faculty of attention, the faculty which has very 
often and very truly been spoken of as forming the connecting 
link between the intellectual and the moral elements of our 
iu:material nature. Iam able to illustrate their beneficial work- 
ing in producing carefulness and in enforcing perseverance, by a 
strong turning upon the use of, or rather upon the need for, a 
word. Von Baer, now the Nestor of biologists, after a long 
argumentation (Mem. Acad. Imp. Sci., St. Petersburg, 1859, 
p- 340) of the value which characterises his argumentations as to 
the affinities of certain Oceanic races, proceeds to consider how 
it is that certain of his predecessors in that sphere, or rather, in 
that hemisphere, as Mr. Wallace has taught us Oceania is very 
nearly, had so lamentably failed in attaining or coming anywhere 
near to the truth. This failure is ascribed to something which 
he calls ‘* Ungenirtheit,” a word which you will not find ina 
-German dictionary, the thing itself not being, Von Baer says, 
German either. I am happy not to be able to find an exact 
equivalent for this word in any single English vocable, the oppo- 
site quality shows itself in facing conscientiously “the drudgery 
of details, without which drudgery,’ Dr. Temple tells us (Nine 
Schools Commission Report, vol. ii., p. 311), ‘‘nothing worth 
doing was ever yet done.” Mr. Mill, I would add, speaks to 
the same effect, and even more appositely, as far as our purpose 
and our vocations are concerned, in his wise Inaugural Address 
at St. Andrews, p. 50. For the utter incompatibility of an 
dradaimwpos $jtno1s,—those two words give a Thucydidean ren- 
dering of ‘* Ungenirtheit,”—with the successful investigation of 
natural problems, I would refer any man of thought, even though 
he be not a biologist, to a consideration of the way in which 
problems, as simple at first sight as the question of the feeding or 
non-feeding of the salmon in fresh water (see Dr. McIntosh, 
Linn. Soc. Proc., vii., p. 148), or that of the agencies whereby 
certain molluscs and annelids bore their way into wood, clay, or 
rocks must be investigated. It is easy to gather from such a 
consideration how severe are the requirements made by natural 
science investigations upon the liveliness and continuousness of 
our faculty of attention. 
I shall speak of but one of the many purely moral benefits 
which may be reasonably regarded either as the fruit of a devo- 
tion to or as a preliminary to success in natural science. Of this 
I will speak in the words of Helmholtz, taking those words from a 
report of them as spoken at the meeting of the German Association 
for the Advancement of Science, which was held last year at Inns- 
bruck. There Professor Helmholtz, in speaking of the distinctive 
characteristics of German scientific men, and of their truthfulness 
| in particular, is reported to have used the following words :— 
. 
