55i 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL. No. 1033 



tive geometry in Iowa State University, in- 

 structor in drawing and descriptive geometry; 

 Mr. M. G. Edwards, graduate student in the 

 University of Wisconsin, instructor in geol- 

 ogy and mineralogy; Mr. T. D. Bains, Jr., a 

 practical mining operator in California, in- 

 structor in mining engineering. The salaries 

 of the full professors in Case School of Ap- 

 plied Science have been raised to $3,500. 



Professor Perry B. Perkins has been 

 called to the chair of mechanics at Brown 

 University. 



Dr. M. O. Tripp has been appointed pro- 

 fessor of mathematics at Olivet College. 



Dr. John B. Leathes, professor of patho- 

 logical chemistry in the University of To- 

 ronto, leaves Toronto in December for Shef- 

 field, England, where he has been appointed 

 professor of physiology in the University of 

 Sheffield. 



Dr. a. W. Stewart, lecturer in organic 

 chemistry in the Queen's University of Bel- 

 fast, and formerly lecturer in stereochemistry 

 at the University College, London, has been 

 appointed lecturer in physical chemistry at 

 the University of Glasgow, in succession to 

 Professor Soddy, now of Aberdeen. 



Dr. D. Waterston, professor of anatomy in 

 King's College, London, has been appointed to 

 succeed Professor J. Musgrove as Bute pro- 

 fessor of anatomy in the University of St. 

 Andrews. 



DISCUSSION AND COBBESPONDENCE 

 DR. bateson's presidential address 



To THE Editor of Science : Lf a more extra- 

 ordinary example of the inverted pyramid in 

 reasoning than is comprised in the two Aus- 

 tralian addresses by Bateson, lately published 

 in Science, has ever been offered to a scientific 

 audience I have never seen it. Offered as 

 these were chiefly to a lay audience they are 

 incomprehensible as coming from a man who 

 has reached the presidency of the British 

 Association. 



We may admit the value of the Mendelian 

 discovery in its relation to low and relatively 

 simple organisms like plants, and also that in 

 higher organisms Mendelian effects can some- 



times be traced, but that unbridled hypothesis 

 should be permitted to cover our colossal ig- 

 norance is not what we expect from such a 

 source. When the observed facts flatly con- 

 tradict a hypothesis a truly scientific exposi- 

 tor says " I can not account for it," and does 

 not cover up (to the lay mind) his ignorance 

 by the phrase of " an inhibiting factor." What 

 is an "inhibiting factor?" Nobody knows. 

 When the Mendelian law proves to fail utterly, 

 as in the notorious case of the mulatto, the 

 assumption of " excessive segregation " means 

 nothing but " I do not know." 



Any case can be " proved," by such methods 

 but they are not scientific. 



When a train is not on time it is doubtless 

 due to " an inhibiting factor," but that ex- 

 planation will hardly satisfy an impatient 

 man who is anxious to be off, nor a railway 

 manager seeking efficiency in his railway 

 work. 



If we assume the origin of life in a simple 

 ameboid organism, without a soma, and the 

 development of a rudimentary soma through 

 natural selection, as a protection against the 

 direct impact of the environment; and then 

 the gradual complexity of the somatic envel- 

 ope until it reaches its present grade in the 

 higher vertebrates, what is the relation of the 

 " germ-plasm " to the soma ? 



We may tolerate the theory of the continuity , 

 of the germ-plasm because it seems to fit the 

 known facts. If it had never acquired a so- 

 matic envelope there would be nothing but 

 ameboid organisms to this day. But to what 

 does the germ-plasm as carried by the present 

 generation of animal life owe its existence? 

 Its potentiality of cell-division depends for 

 continuity upon the nutrition furnished by 

 the soma. Is it creditable that in hundreds 

 of millions of evolving generations the con- 

 stantly renewed germ-plasm should remain 

 unmodified and that in an ameba there should 

 exist unawakened the factors for hair, teeth, 

 bones and hoofs? The idea seems to the 

 writer preposterous. If the plasma has not 

 changed its characters and potentialities since 

 the ameboid epoch, why should there be any- 

 thing now but amebas? If through the slow 



