948 
as to the training of our children it would 
be achievable in the very next generation, 
for surely, if a generation can be reared to 
reverence a stick or a stone, an inanimate 
idol, and this or that grotesque religious 
System, it can be reared also to love and 
reverence man. 
One paragraph more and I have done. 
We hear of the evolution of morals or of 
language or of religion, of the printing 
press, of the locomotive, of the bicycle, and 
so forth. In the popular mind, and, I fear, 
even in the minds of some scientific men, 
this evolution ranks as a process of the same 
order as the evolution of a plant or animal. 
Evolution means unfolding, and, therefore, 
the word is perhaps correctly applied to the 
bicycle, etc. But there is this essential dif- 
ference between a living being and the 
bicycle: The former is the progeny of a 
parent ; the latter is not. So also the lan- 
guage of to-day isin a figurative sense only 
the progeny of the language of the former 
times ; the morals of to-day have, in a figu- 
rative sense only, descended from those of 
yesterday. All these things are human 
inventions, and belong not to human evo- 
lution, but to what has been called evo- 
lution in the environment.’ The so-called 
“Social Evolution,’ of which we have lately 
heard so much, is therefore a myth from 
the biological standpoint. As I have said, 
and as I wish to iterate and reiterate, 
neither the altruistic feelings in particular, 
nor morals in general, nor anything of the 
kind, has undergone evolution in man. 
What has undergone evolution is his enor- 
mous power of acquiring characters, these 
among others. G. ArcHDALL Ret. 
SOUTHSEA, ENGLAND. 
SOME RECENT OBSERVATIONS ON THE IN- 
FLUENCE OF THE THYROID GLAND 
ON METABOLISM, 
Iy an article by Professor Chittenden, 
published in Scrence, June 25th, asummary 
SCIENCE. 
(N.S. Vou. VI. No. 156. 
is given of what was then known regarding 
the influence of the thyroid gland on metab- 
olism. Since that time a valuable contri- 
bution to our knowledge has come from 
Bernhard Schéndorff, published in Pfluger’s 
Archiv fur Physiologie (Band 67, p. 395). 
He finds that, contrary to previously re- 
ceived notions, the feeding of thyroid 
glands or iodothyrin to an animal does not 
invariably stimulate proteid metabolism. 
Further he finds that the loss of weight so 
often observed under such treatment is due 
mainly to an increased combustion of the 
body-fats, and that the increased excretion 
of nitrogen through the urine observed by 
Voit and others is not necessarily due to an 
increased proteid metabolism, but to an in- 
crease in the excretion of urea and allied 
bodies which are known to exist pre-formed 
in the tissues in considerable quantities. 
The investigation was carried out on a 
dog of 55 pounds weight. It was kept in a 
suitable cage, and its food so regulated that 
under ordinary conditions the animal re- 
mained at a constant weight and in nitrog- 
enous equilibrium. Thethyroids were ad- 
ministered for the most part in the form of 
dry tablets prepared by Borroughs, Well- 
come &Co., of London, but sometimes fresh 
or dried sheep’s thyroids were given either 
alone or with the tablets. At first the do- 
sage was ten of these tablets administered 
with the daily food. Within a few hours 
the animal’s weight began to fall, and at 
the end of twenty-three days it had lost 
nearly two and a half pounds. During the 
first eight days the nitrogen also showed a 
minus balance; that given off in the urine 
and feces amounted to 32 grams, while the 
food contained only 31 grams. During the 
next fifteen days, however, there was a plus 
balance. Evidently these results point to 
a largely increased consumption and elimi; 
nation of non-nitrogenous material, and in 
the light of previous researches Schondorff 
attributes them to an increased combustion 
