June 5, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



885 



will know where to look for information; 

 and lie can use it when he finds it. If he 

 meets a phrase he can not construe, he will 

 know how to use his dictionary. A state- 

 ment couched in chemical language, or 

 sjrmbols, will not make him shut the book 

 like a nineteenth-century chemist con- 

 fronted with a sign of integration. 



Nothing will arouse and retain the stu- 

 dent's interest so effectually as frequent 

 references to those points of contact be- 

 tween theory and practise, where the ab- 

 stractions we are trying to teach him be- 

 come concrete in the problems he will have 

 to face. 



And here let me say what I have hinted 

 before, that it is a mistake, I am sure, to 

 keep organic chemistry a sealed book to the 

 engineer. If we consider the various ap- 

 plications of chemistry to daily life and to 

 industry, it is surprising to note how many 

 of them are concerned with the chemistry 

 of the carbon compounds. Fuel, ex- 

 plosives, sanitation, the decay and preser- 

 vation of timber, pigments, oils, paper, 

 textile industry, fermentation, the prepara- 

 tion and preservation of food, all have to 

 do with organic chemistry. Let any one 

 read a list of patents, or the classification 

 of abstracts in the Journal of the Society 

 of Chemical Industry, and this will be 

 made abundantly clear. 



It may be objected that in the time at 

 his disposal the student can only acquire a 

 smattering of this great subject, and that 

 such a smattering is worse than useless. I 

 readily grant the first contention, but I 

 emphatically deny the second. If by the 

 abusive term "smattering" we mean a 

 little knowledge, then that smattering is 

 dangerous only when it carries with it un- 

 consciousness of its own littleness, and I 

 hope I have made myself sufSciently clear 

 as to the importance of keeping always 

 before the student his own limitations. 



The cure for superficiality, that bugbear 

 of the pedant, is not to blindfold the eyes, 

 but to train the eyesight, and the student 

 whose mental vision is thus sharpened will 

 not only be able to see clearly the things 

 that lie before him and about him on the 

 threshold of our science, but he it is who 

 will most readily discern the vastness and 

 the richness of the territory at whose 

 frontier he stands; and he who will most 

 humbly and most surely walk in any of its 

 paths along which his business or his pleas- 

 ure calls him. 



William H. Ellis 



UmvEKSiTT OF Toronto 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 The Integrative Action of the Nervous Sys- 

 tem. By Charles S. Sherrington. New 

 York, Charles Scribner's Sons. 1906. Pp. 

 xvii + 411. $3.50. 



This volume contains the Silliman Me- 

 morial Lectures delivered at Tale University 

 in 1904. In it the author focuses the work 

 which he has carried on with such assiduity 

 on the functions of the central nervous system 

 considered as an organ for coordination. This 

 side of nervous physiology has perhaps re- 

 ceived less attention of late than the study of 

 the activities of the individual nerve fiber or 

 cell; though, to he sure, the author is able to 

 refer to a long list of fellow workers, brought 

 together into a valuable bibliography, among 

 whom the most prominent are perhaps Exner 

 and Goltz. It may, however, be safely said 

 that the author's own contributions, in range 

 and precision, now entitle him to rank at the 

 head of students of this phase of the subject. 

 The function of nervous tissue is, in a word, 

 to conduct, and so to integrate — to enable the 

 organism, in reacting on its environment, to 

 act as a harmonious whole. To understand 

 this function, one must, of course, penetrate 

 the mystery of nerve conduction; but besides, 

 and to some extent independent of that, one 

 must know what are the paths of conduction 

 and how they are interrelated. The present 

 work is not concerned specially with topog- 



