February 17, 1899.] 



SCIENCE. 



247 



words, " not merely with punitive views, but 

 also to show us what mighty effects he can 

 produce by instruments so insignificant, 

 thus calling on us to glorify his power, 

 wisdom and goodness." 



Contrast with this view the view of Pro- 

 fessor Bailey, in one of his charming essays 

 in the volume entitled ' The Survival of the 

 Unlike :' " We are now prepared to admit 

 that this whole question of enemy and 

 friend is a relative one, and does not depend 

 upon right and wrong, but simply upon our 

 own relationships to the given animals and 

 plants. An insect which eats our potatoes 

 is an enemy because we want the potatoes 

 too ; the insect has as much right to the 

 potatoes as we have. He is pressed by the 

 common necessity of maintaining himself, 

 and there is every evidence that the potato 

 was made as much for the insect as for the 

 human kind. Dame Nature is quite as mucli 

 interested in the insect as in man. ' What 

 a pretty bug!' she exclaims ; '.send him 

 over to Smith's potato patch.' But a bug 

 which eats this insect is beneficial ; that is, 

 he is beneficial to man, not to the insect. 

 Thus everything in nature is a benefit to 

 something and an injury to something; and 

 every time that conditions of life are modi- 

 fied the relationships readjust themselves." 



In these words Bailej^with his accustomed 

 felicity, has expressed the situation admi- 

 rably. Man is but one of the forms of life 

 struggling for existence, at continual war- 

 fare with surrounding forms ; but by virtue 

 of his surpassing intelligence — itself as grad- 

 ually evolved as have been the physical 

 characteristics of any given species — he has 

 overrun the earth, has accommodated him- 

 self to the most unnatural environments ; 

 he has dominated all other species in na- 

 ture ; he has turned to his own uses and 

 encouraged or hastened the evolution of 

 species useful to him or of useful qualities 

 in such species ; he has wiped out of exist- 

 ence certain inimical forms, and is gaining 



the control of others. He is the dominant 

 type, and types whose existence and methods 

 of life are opposed to his interests are being 

 pushed to the wall. It is the culmination 

 of a history which has many times repeated 

 itself in past ages. The struggle of other 

 forms of life to accommodate themselves to 

 the conditions brought about by the rapid 

 development of this dominant type is one 

 the most interesting fields of study open to 

 the biologist to-day. It would seem as if, 

 in man's efforts to make the face of the 

 earth his own, all the complicated elements 

 of life were arrayed against him, and the 

 great and ultimate result of the labor of the 

 biologist in his study of the relations of the 

 different forms of life and the laws which 

 govern their development will be to bring 

 about the absolute control of all other life 

 by man. Thus it is not only the economic 

 worker who looks for immediate results of a 

 practical kind from his labor — the scientific 

 agriculturist, the horticulturist, the eco- 

 nomic zoologist, the medical bacteriologist 

 — who should command the respect of even 

 the practical-minded man, but the biologist 

 in whatever field, however restricted it 

 may be, whether he is working towards the 

 understanding of broad principles and gen- 

 eral laws, or whether in some narrow corner 

 of research, he is accumulating material 

 which will help ultimately to lead to wider 

 understandings — all are working helpfully 

 and practically towards the perfect well- 

 being of the human race. 



L. O. Howard. 

 Washington, X>. C. 



ANTI-FRICTION ALLOYS. 

 M. G. Chaepy, the well-known investi- 

 gator in this field, publishes in the Bulletin 

 de la Societe cV Encouragement pour V Industrie 

 Nationals, for June, 1898, an extensive paper 

 on the ' Travaux de la Commission des Alliages,' 

 of which the following are some of the main 

 points : 



