October 15, 1896] 



NA TURE 



589 



several occasions. The interim report of a Committee on Geo- 

 graphical cducalion in this cuunlry appointed last year was read ; 

 the n>alerial collected by its Secretary (Mr. Ilerbertson) is very 

 vuluminovis, but being still incomplete, its final consideration 

 was postponed until next year. Mr. Ilerbertson also showed 

 an ingenious piece of apparatus designed to explain the theory 

 of map projections by a shadow of a skeleton hemisphere made 

 up of wire meridians and parallels thrown on a sheet of paper 

 by a candle, the position of which can be varied by sliding it 

 along a liar. Mr. .•V. W. Andrews, of Malvern Wells, gave a 

 thoughtful paper, from the standpoint of a practical teacher, on 

 the importance of combining geographical and historical teach- 

 ing in schools. A very similar subject was treated, with philo- 

 sophic thoroughness, by Mr. G. (j. Chisholni, under the title 

 of " the relativity of geographical advantages." In his opinion 

 geographical advantages may be considered : (l) As relative to 

 the physical condition of the surface of a country, eg. the ex- 

 tent of forests, marshes, i.\:c. The former and present relative 

 importance of Liverpool and Hristol may be explained, in part 

 at least, by changes that have taken place under this head. 

 Also the difl'erence in direction by some of the great Roman 

 roads and those of the present day, and the consequent fact that 

 some important Roman stations in Britain are not now repre- 

 sented even by a hamlet. (2) As relative to the political condition 

 of a country and of other countries. (3) As relative to the state 

 of military science. Under these two heads the difference in 

 the situation of the Roman wall between the Tyne and Solway 

 and the Anglo-,Scottish boundary suggests some considerations. 

 .\lso the difference in the situation of .some important Roman 

 towns or stations and their modern representatives (Uriconnim, 

 Shrewsbury ; Sorbiodunum, Salisbury). (4) .\s relative to the 

 .state of applied science — well illustrated in this country in 

 the history of the iron and textile industries. (5) .-^s relative 

 to the density of population — another impotrant consideration 

 in the industrial history of our own country. (6) As relative to 

 the mental attitude of the people where the geographical ad- 

 vantages exist. Many Chinese travellers and students of China 

 have recognised the excessive reverence for ancestors in that 

 country as one great hindrance in the way of turning the ad- 

 vantages of the country to account. 



Taken altogether the proceedings of Section E shosv that 

 geography, viewed as a science, is in a progroesive and healthy 

 condition in Great Britain at the present time. Increased 

 attention is being devoted to the theoretical aspects, while there 

 is certainly no diminution in the enterprise of explorers or in 

 their power of conveying a clear idea of the new lands and seas 

 they visit. 



SCIENCE IN THE MAGAZINES. 

 T^URIN'G the last twenty or thirty years there has been a very 

 large increase in the number of insane under detention in 

 a.sylum.s. This increase, Mr. Thomas Drapes argues with much 

 force in the Forlnightly, is mainly due to accumulation of chronic 

 cases, and does not in it.self necessarily indicate any increase in 

 in.sanityin the .sense of increased liability to mental derangement 

 on the part of the community. In fact, the number of insane 

 under care could double itself in llic course of a comparatively 

 short period of years without the addition of a single ca.se to the 

 number of those annually attacked. For these reasons, and be- 

 cause lunacy statistics only show a rise of 0'3 per 10,000 (from 

 4'5 to 4-8) of first admissions in twenty years, Mr. Drapes holds 

 that no alarming increase has occurred in liability to insanity in 

 England. 



TweKe months ago. Dr. A. R. Wallace brought together, in 

 the Fortnighllv, a number of interesting facts which seemed to 

 show that mouth-gesture was the chief factor in the origin of 

 language. He pointed out that a considerable number of the 

 most familiar words are so constructed as to proclaim their mean- 

 ing more or less distinctly by movements of various parts of the 

 mouth used in pronouncing them, and by peculiarities in breath- 

 ing, or in vocalisation. Mr. Charles Johnston meets Dr. Wallace 

 on his own ground by asking him, in this month's number of the 

 Fortnightly, the purport of a quatrain of which two lines are : — 

 " Jambvamralodhrakhadira — salavet rasaniakulam, Padmakama- 

 lakaplaksha — kadambodumbaraortam.'' This is a part of a 

 highly-coloured description which has been the admiration of 

 centuries, and Dr. Wallace is invited to declare the meaning it 

 expresses. But Mr. Johnston does not confine himself to setting 

 conundrums ; he shows how very difficult it is to reach any fixed 



NO. 1407, VOL. 54] 



principle on the lines laid down, how extremely fugitive and con- 

 tradictory the expressiveness of words is. It is suggested that 

 more sound conclu.sions as to the beginnings of language will be 

 derived from the study of " The World's Baby-Talk." Just as 

 embryology has shown that each individual climbs up his own 

 genealogical tree, so, by watching the development of speech in 

 a baby, we can see the first steps in articulate language. Mr. 

 Johnston elaborates this idea, and shows that certain languages, 

 chosen for their extreine phonetic simplicity, exhibit a striking 

 analogy with baby-talk. 



A third article in the Fortnightly is by Mr. H. G. Wells, and 

 the title is " Human Evolution, an Artificial Process." Start- 

 ing from well-known biological facts, suggestive conclusions in 

 ethics and educational science are reached. " Assuming the 

 truth of Natural Selection," says Mr Wells, " and having regard 

 to Prof. Weismann's destructive criticisms of the evidence for 

 the inheritance of acquired, there are .satisfactory grounds for 

 believing that man (allowing for racial Mendings) is .still men- 

 tally, morally, and physically, what he was during the later 

 Palreolithic period, that we are, and that the race is likely to 

 remain, for (Inimanly speaking) a vast period of time, at the level 

 of the Stone Age. The only considerable evolution that ha.s 

 occurred since then, so far as man is concerned, has been, it is 

 here asserted, a different sort of evolution altogether, an evolu- 

 tion of suggestions and ideas." Taking the average rate at which, 

 rabbits breed, something like two hundred generations would 

 descend from a single doe in a century, and would be subjected 

 to the process of Natural Selection, whereas only four or five 

 human generations would be amenable to the same process in 

 the same time. " Taking all these points together, and assuming 

 four generations of men to the century — a generous allow.ance — 

 and ten thousand years as the period of time that has elapsed 

 since man entered upon the age of Polished Stone, it can scarcely 

 be an exaggeration to say that he has had time only to undergo 

 as much specific modification as the rabbit could get through in 

 a century." The difference between civilised man and the Stone 

 Age savage arises from the development of speech and writing, 

 so that, to follow the argument, civilised man represents (I) an 

 inherited factor, the natural man, who is the product of natural 

 selection, and (2) an acquired factor, the artificial man, the 

 highly plastic creature of tradition, suggestion, and reasoned 

 thought. Obviously, then, education should aim at the careful 

 and systematic manufacture of the latter factor. 



An article by Mr. W. K. Hill, in the Conlemforary, may be 

 taken as an expression of the general opinion that the develop- 

 ment of the "artificial factor," referred to by Mr. Wells, is not 

 carried out on intelligent lines. " In the secondary school the 

 great .Scholarship Steeplechase is the chief occupation. In the 

 university the spirit ot examination, like a huge cuttle-fish, is 

 gradually winding its multiple tentacles around every effort at 

 original thought and ideal culture." Geometry is studied, says 

 Mr. Hill, as an abstract concatenation of puzzles, instead of as 

 a means to educate the faculty of reasoning. " We teach 

 always, but seldom eilucate, and yet ' Instruction,' as Locke truly 

 observes, is but the least part of education. We do not try to 

 develop mind — we only try to stuff brain." But while men of 

 science have regretfully to coiifess that the indictment has 

 much evidence to support it, they may point, at the same 

 time, to the growth of a better system of instruction in 

 many of our schools and colleges — a system which makes 

 the pupil investigate for himself natural phenomena and laws,, 

 and develops his faculties of observation and reasoning. 



From mediaeval history Mr. Boris Sidis has drawn a number 

 of instances of mental epidemics which spread from one end of 

 Europe to the other, and left thousands of people struggling in 

 convulsions of hysterical insanity, and performing acts as if 

 their voluntary movement had been lost, or greatly limited. 

 To this class of mental epidemics belong the pilgrimage mania. 

 Crusade mania, and dancing manias. These epidemics, and 

 others, are described in the Century. In experiments in sugges- 

 tion made by Mr. Sidis in the Psychological Laboratory at 

 Harvard College, he found that when the attention, in perfectly 

 normal ]ieople, was concentrated on one point for some time, 

 say twenty seconds, commands suddenly given at the end of 

 that time were very often immediately carried out by the sub- 

 jects. Concentration of attention upon one point appears, 

 therefore, to be highly favourable to sugge.stibility, and Mr. 

 Sidis is of the opinion that — "The medi;^val man was in a 

 similar state of light hypnosis. This was induced in him by 

 the great limitation of his voluntary moveinents, by the inhibi- 



