SCIENCE 



[Vol. XX. No. 512 



SCIENCE: 



Published ev N. D. C. HODGES, 87 j Broadway, New York. 



SuBSCEiPTioNS.— United States and Canada S3. 60 a year. 



Great Britain and Europe 4.50 a year. 



To any contributor, on request in advance, one hundred copies of th.e issue 

 containing his article will be sent without charge. More copies will be sup- 

 plied at about cost, also if ordered in advance. Reprints are not supplied, as 

 for obvious reasons we desire to circulate as many copies of Science as pos- 

 sible. Authors are, however, at perfect liberty to have their articles reprinted 

 elsewhere. For illustrations, drawings in black and white suitable for photo- 

 engraving should be supplied by the contributor. Rejected manuscripts will be 

 returned to the authors only when the requisite amount of postage accom- 

 panies the manuscript. Whatever is intended for insertion must be authenti- 

 cated by the name and address of the writer; not necessarily for publication, 

 but as a guaranty of good faith. We do not hold ourselves responsible for 

 any view or opinions expressed in the communications of our correspondents. 



Attention is called to the "Wants ^' column. It is invaluable to those who 

 use it in soliciting information or seeking new positions. The name and 

 address of applicants should be given in full, so that answers will go direct to 

 them. The "Exchange ^' column is likewise open. 



[Nutnerous complaints reach its of delay in receiving " Science " through 

 the mails. It appears that it frequently takes a week for the paper to 

 reach Illinois, for instance. This is' owing to the small allowance of funds 

 to the New York Fost-Office, which prevents the employment of a sufficient 

 force and compels the present force to work in decidedly over-crowded quarters.} 



THE PEDIGREE OF THE LETTER Y. 



BT CANON ISAAC TAYLOR, LITT.D., YOHK, ENGLAND. 



It is commonly asserted that our letter y is the lineal descendant 

 of the Roman Y, which in the time of Cicero was borrowed fi-om 

 the Greek alphabet to represent upsilon in the transliteration of 

 Greek names. This, however, is a mistake, as will be seen by 

 tracing the history of the letter. It is only when y is used, as the 

 Romans used it, as a vowel to transliterate upsilon in loan-words 

 (either direct from the Greek or indirectly through Latin or 

 French), such as hyperbola, hydrostatics, hypocrite, tyrant, or 

 myrtle, that our y represents the Roman Y and the Greek upsilon. 

 In the great majority of cases the English 7/ is a semi-consonant 

 corresponding in value to the Continental j, as in young, yea, 

 year, Yenisei, Yakut, which in German are spe\i jung.ja, jahr, 

 Jenisei, JaJcut. Along with the other Roman letters, the letter 

 Y was adopted by the Anglo-Saxons from the Latin alphabet, with 

 a value approximating to that of i, and hence the y in Anglo Saxon 

 words has usually become i in modern English, or has lapsed 

 into the neutral vowel, as in the words, fyr, fyst, hyd. hyf, bt^jcg, 

 ynce, hyll, flyht, yfel, and wyrm. which are now written fire, 

 fist, hide, hive, bridge, inch, hill, flight, evil, and worm. In fact, 

 there is not a single lineal descendant of the Anglo-Saxon y now 

 in existence. The letter y in modern English words is, curiously 

 enough, not a y at all, but a lineal descendant of the Anglo- 

 Saxon g, which was the Roman G, evolved by the Romans out of 

 an earlier C. This Anglo-Saxon g split into two sounds, retaining 

 the old hard sound before or after the back vowels a, o, and u, as 

 in go, dog, gold, gum, while before or after the front vowels e and 

 i it weakened into a palatal semi-vowel; the words ge, gese, gea, 

 git, and gear, becoming ye, yes, yea, yet, and year. A symbol 

 which has acquired two values is frequently differentiated into two 

 forms, thus i and j, u and v have come to denote respectively tUe 

 vocalic and semi-consonantal sounds of the same primitive symbol. 

 This happened with the values of g. The Anglo Saxon form 3 

 came to be appropriated for the weakened sound, and the Caro- 

 line or Continental form g was used for the original stopped 

 sound. In Middle English MSS., we have the two forms side by 

 side, written 3 and g. At the time of the invention of printing, 

 this weakened g, written 3 , had become almost identical in form 

 with y, and accordingly printers used y to express it, while in 

 Scotland asm black letter ( 3 ) was used for the weakened g, and 

 in old Scotch books we fine yet printed as zit, and year as zeir, 

 not that these words were pronounced with a z. but z was used 



for 3 , as 2/ was in England ; just we write viz for videlicet, where 

 the 2 is not the sibilant, but merely an old ligature for et, videlicet 

 being formerly written videlicz , in the same way as libet was 

 written libZ . So also the final y, so common in English words, 

 is really the descendant of the final ig, equally common in Anglo- 

 Saxon ; many, busy, any, greedy, silly, honey, holy, and day being- 

 the Anglo-Saxon words manig, bysig, cenig, grcedig, scelig, honig, 

 halig, and dcBg. This final y is so common a termination in 

 English that, owing to analogy, it has replaced the old termination 

 ie in other words, as in academy, anatomy, homily, and irony, 

 where it represents the Greek ia, or in jolly and tardy, where it 

 represents the French if. In by and my it has been introduced 

 from analogy with words such as dry, fly. sky. where the y is 

 really the weakened g. It will be objected that in certain words, 

 such as "young" and "yard," an Anglo-Saxon g has become y 

 before back vowels, but this fact is really only a confirmation of 

 the rule, as in such cases the front vowel which modified the g 

 has been lost, "young" being from the Anglo-Saxon geong, and 

 "yard " from geard. 



In the neo-Latin languages the same weakening of g before 

 front vowels took place, but duplicate forms of the letter not 

 being available to denote the two sounds, g represents both sounds, 

 as in the case of the Italial words gente and gallo, or the French 

 geant and gmit, or else the g was replaced by j, as injoiiir, from 

 the Latin gaudere. 



INSTINCT. 



BY C. F. AMEEY. 



It is now universally recognized that animals possess intelli- 

 gence. The evidences on this head are too patent for dispute; 

 but, like the guinea of the Primrose girls, it is supposed to be em- 

 ployed only in extraordinary emergencies. All the text-books on 

 comparative psychology assume that all the ordinary pursuits of 

 animals are instinctive, by which is implied automatic and me- 

 chanical; but whether instincts are to be regarded as impulses or 

 as guides to action, or whether the activities are themselves in- 

 stincts, is nowhere clearly defined in the text-books I have con- 

 sulted. I purpose, in the present paper, to define the nature of 

 instinct, and to indicate its place and the importance of its func- 

 tions in the general economy of animal life. 



The only satisfactory course of procedure is, first to collect and 

 array the facts, and as man himself presents abundant illustra- 

 tion of all the psychological activities exercised in the animal 

 kingdom, we cannot do better than examine the facts and study 

 the nature and functions of instinct as exemplified in our own 

 persons. 



What then is instinct ? 



All the functions of the human organism and all the activities 

 of life are classifiable under three heads — the mechanical, the re- 

 flex, and the intelligent. 



The mechanical are the fundamental continuous processes of 

 digestion, assimilation, circulation, secretion, and respiration. 

 All these processes are performed unconsciously and involuntarily 

 excepting respiration, which is performed sub-consciously and is 

 to a small extent under the control of the will. 



The reflex activities are automatic responses of the neuro-mus- 

 cular organism to the stimulus sensations. They begin and end 

 in the organism. In man, as in other animals, they are due tO' 

 secretions in the system, to contact with external objects, or tO' 

 special periodical or occasional conditions of the organism. They 

 are all performed consciously by man, and are all susceptible of 

 being brought more or less under the control of the will. The 

 most common reflex activities are laughing, crying, sucking, 

 masticating, swallowing, voiding the foeces and urine, coughing, 

 sneezing, withdrawal from contact with objects, purposeless 

 bodily exercise, etc. Laughing and crying may result from sen- 

 sation, but they are sometimes reflex activities of the brain, origi- 

 nating in ideas. 



Intelligent activities result from the perception of objects, their 

 properties, and relations. Every effort for adjustment of the or- 

 ganism to external conditions apprehended through the senses is 



