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NA TURE 



{Jan. 8, 1874 



been urged that man has no right to inflict pain on ani- 

 mals. The same argument has been urged against the 

 destruction of the life of animals at all, and the adoption 

 of a vegetarian diet has been the result. It is surely not 

 needful to answer the last argument here, but in a degree 

 the answer is the same against giving pain to animals ; 

 if we take animal life for the purpose of food, it is only- 

 taking the life we have given us for the purpose of our exis- 

 tence ; and in giving a minimum of pain to animals we 

 give it for the higher purposes of securing human life and 

 freedom from pain. It is curious to see those who defend 

 the cruel sports of fox-hunting, hare-hunting, and par- 

 tridge and pheasant shooting exclaim against the cruelty 

 of vivisection. Yet it could be clearly shown, we believe, 

 that those physiologists who are in the habit of practising 

 vivisection would not be found at Hiirlingham taking part 

 in pigeon-shooting, or meeting with the hounds in any 

 part of the country. In fact, so far from producing a 

 hardening effect on the mind, these experiments seem to 

 engender in the mind of the observer a love and a care 

 for the brute creation, that does not exist in the mind 

 of an ordinary person. A celebrated entomologist, in 

 answer to the objection made to the pursuit of his science, 

 the destruction of the life of insects, made answer that 

 his habit of observing insects had induced him at various 

 times to save more lives of insects — as flies from the 

 cream-jug and tea-cup— than he had ever destroyed to 

 make his entomological collection. 



The question still arises whether the experiments that 

 resulted in the discoveries to which we have referred should 

 be repeated for the instruction of a class, or be regarded as 

 final? Many physiologists think that the lenewalof the ex- 

 periments in the form of a demonstration before a class is 

 not necessary. This position, however, cannot be main 

 tained, if regard is had to the good of mankind. He would 

 be a poor chemist who did not re-perform the experiments 

 of those who had gone before him ; and the natural philo- 

 sopher could not make progress in his science if forbidden 

 to repeat the observations of his predecessors. It is not 

 only necessary to make good practitioners of medicine, 

 and surgery that these experiments should be repeated 

 but it is necessary for the advancement of the science of 

 physiology. 



Of course all these experiments should be performed 

 with the greatest attention to diminishing pain to the 

 utmost extent. Happily, by the use of anaesthetics, we 

 can now do this so that an an mal does not suffer more than 

 it would in passing out of existence in any other way. And 

 we are glad to find whilst writing this, that Prof. Schiff, of 

 Florence, who has been so unrighteously assailed for these 

 experiments, in a letter to the limes completely refutes all 

 the charges brought against him, never failing to adminis- 

 ter anaesthetics in the performance of these operations. 



THE RELATION OF MIND AND BODY 

 Mind and Body. The Theories of their Relation. By 

 Alexander Bain, LL.D., Professor of Logic in the 

 University of Aberdeen. (Henry S. King and Co., 



1873.) 



IN this volume, which forms one of the international 

 scientific series, the thoughtful reader is once more 

 called on to consider those leading positions in psycho- 



logy for which Prof. Bain has so long and so ably con- 

 tended. He has here succeeded in presenting his views 

 in language as concise, clear, and popular as the nature 

 of his subject will permit. Whoever attaches im- 

 portance to the application of scientific method to 

 mental phenomena must welcome this popular statement 

 of doctrines, which, if not the whole truth, are immea- 

 surablv nearer the truth than are the superstitions to 

 which not only the uneducated, but also the great mass 

 of the learned, are subject. 



It is already known that Prof. Bain has given his 

 adhesion, more or less fully, to the doctrine of inheritance 

 in the region both of intellect and emotion — a doctrine 

 without which the "experience" philosophy was utterly 

 inadequate to explain the known facts. We may there- 

 fore be allowed to regret that he has not in this volume 

 given more prominence to a conception without which 

 his own system is but a half truth plus something of posi- 

 tive error. We are disappointed, for we certainly ex- 

 pected more than grudging references to " the new 

 theory." 



We have before now indicated our opinion that there 

 is something wrong about Prof. Bain's celebrated theory 

 of the Will ; and we cannot now refrain from observing 

 that in the present volume he seems to us to make the 

 weakness of his position more manifest by placing along- 

 side of his old theory some of the clearer and more 

 thorough conceptions of recent development. " The dis- 

 tinguishing peculiarity of our voluntary movements," says 

 Prof. Bain, '" is that they take their rise in Feeling, and 

 are guided by Intellect." Now our contention is, that 

 there is no fact in nature corresponding to this descrip- 

 tion. Taking it for granted that " feeling " and " intel- 

 lect " here mean facts of consciousness, and not physical 

 facts — the objective activity of nerve cells and nerve fibres 

 — we assert (i) that taken in the lump it is an expression 

 of the popular notion, which Prof Bain rejects, that the 

 body is governed by the mind somewhat in the same 

 way that the horse is governed by his rider ; (2) that 

 looked at closely it is a string of words making up a pro- 

 position that cannot be represented in thought. In sup- 

 port of the first point in our criticism it must suffice to 

 show that Prof. Bain's teaching with regard to the will is 

 relied on by the most thoughtful advocates of the doctrine 

 of the soul — a belief against which Prof. Bain has been 

 fighting all his life. A perfect example of the way in 

 which Prof. Bain's theory is interpreted in favour of 

 the hypothesis of a soul will be found in Mr. Lowne's 

 " Philosophy of Evolution." We had recently occa- 

 sion to make a few remarks on this essay, and we 

 cannot now do better than quote part of what we 

 then wrote : — " It is in studying the phenomena of 

 volition (as understood by Prof. Bain) that Mr. Lowne 

 finds the unmistakable evidence of a spiritual clerk em- 

 ployed in working the nervous apparatus. . . . Comparing 

 the nervous system to a complex telegraphic system, he 

 says : — ' If the electric fluid became periodically liberated 

 and affected all the instruments at once, or in a given 

 succession, mechanism alone would account for the phe- 

 nomena (reflex action) ; but if the electric current were 

 always utilised according to ever-var)ing conditions 

 which do not bear any direct relation to the manner in 

 which the effect is produced— that is, which are them- 



