August 30, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



271 



temples and tombs. The models are votive 

 offerings (donaiia) which used to be pre- 

 sented to the shrine of some deity by the 

 common people, and their medical signifi- 

 cance is Dr. Sambon's own discovery. Look- 

 ing one day at the collection of these ob- 

 jects in the museum at Eome, he noticed 

 that they v^ere intended to represent por- 

 tions of the human body, certain internal 

 organs, and so forth, a fact which had com- 

 pletely escaped the eye of the lay anti- 

 quarian, who took them to represent fruits. 

 This discovery aroused Dr. Sambon's inter- 

 est, and he began to collect specimens from 

 various places in Italy. He has now got 

 together several hundreds, chiefly from the 

 Temple of Maternity at Capua, the Temple 

 of Minerva Medica in Eome, and from the 

 Etruscan towns of Corneto, Civita Lavinia 

 and Veil. These terra cotta figures were in 

 some cases thankoflferings, in others ap- 

 peals for children, for relief from some dis- 

 ease or deformity, and so on. The model 

 represents the part of the body affected — 

 the face or part of the face, the ear, a limb, 

 or some internal organ — and, though rough, 

 they are fashioned with a considerable 

 knowledge of anatomy. — London Times. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND EVOLUTION. 



Professor Baldwin's article on 'Conscious- 

 ness and Evolution ' in the last number of this 

 journal should be carefully read and consid- 

 ered. No student of evolution can ignore con- 

 sciousness and its place in organic development, 

 but clear ideas can only be obtained by serious 

 psychological study. Thus Darwin in discussing 

 ' sexual selection ' continually passes ft'om those 

 secondary sexual characters which are useful to 

 the male in conquering other males or in finding 

 and securing the female, to those characters 

 which are supposed to please or charm the fe- 

 male. He does not realize the great difference 

 in the two problems. The former is simply a 

 special case of ' natural selection. ' The latter 

 introduces entirely new factors. The taste in 



the female which prefers certain colors in the 

 male is no less complex than the colors pre- 

 ferred. So long as it is not possible to assign 

 any useful function to the female taste, nothing 

 whatever is gained by assuming it to be the 

 cause of the preservation of otherwise harmful 

 characters in the male.* 



Now as I understand Darwin in this instance 

 and Professor Cope in those of his writings that 

 I have read, consciousness qua consciousness, in 

 interaction with the physical world, is used to 

 explain the preservation (Darwin) and even the 

 origin (Cope) of variations. Thus Mr. Cope 

 remarks (Science N. S., Vol. II., p. 125): 



"The cause of the movements of organic beings are 

 various. The best known are conscious states, as 

 hunger, cold, heat and various other sensations ; 

 some of them of higher mental grade, as fear, anger, 

 etc. Movements by the lowest animals, as that drop 

 of jelly, the amoeba, appear to be the result of sensa- 

 tions. * * * * " The phenomenon of heliotro- 

 pism, for instance, when these simijle creatures leave 

 the dark and crowd into light places, cannot be 

 shown to be due to chemical or physical causes only. 

 They seek oxygen, which is more abundant where 

 sunlight penetrates, but they have to be aware that 

 they need it, and must have some knowledge of the 

 fact when they get it. ' ' 



Probably most psychologists would say that 

 the causes of the movements of organic beings 

 are physical stimuli acting on a complex phys- 

 ical organism. If we can never explain the 

 movements of protozoa toward the light by 

 chemical or physical causes, then it must be by 

 some form of energy analogous to these. When 

 Mr. Baldwin writes, ' ' I agree with Mr. Cope 

 that most race habits are due to conscious func- 

 tion in the first place," he probably means that 

 the habits are due to the cerebral concomitants 

 of consciousness, but I understand that Mr. Cope 

 would assume consciousness in causal interaction 

 with the physical world. 



Mr. Baldwin does well to call attention to the 

 relation of the social environment to human ev- 



* I should myself take it for granted that the fe- 

 male likes certain traits because they are present in 

 the male, not that the traits are present in the male 

 because the female likes them. I venture to suggest 

 that the bright colors and useless appendages in the 

 male develop an accompanying alertness that more 

 than counterbalances their drawbacks. 



