612 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VIII. No. 201, 



the Society for Psychical Research to com- 

 bine critical and negative work with work 

 leading to positive discovery. To the pene- 

 tration and scrupulous fair-mindedness of 

 Professor Henry Sidgwick and of the late 

 Edmund Gurney is largely due the establish- 

 ment of canons of evidence in psychical re- 

 search, which strengthen while they narrow 

 the path of subsequent explorers. To the 

 detective genius of Dr. Richard Hodgson 

 we owe a convincing demonstration of the 

 narrow limits of human continuous ob- 

 servation. 



It has been said that ' Nothing worth the 

 proving can be proved, nor yet disproved.' 

 True though this may have been in the 

 past, it is true no longer. The science of 

 our century has forged weapons of observa- 

 tion and analysis by which the veriest tyro 

 may profit. Science has trained and fash- 

 ioned the average mind into habits of ex- 

 actitude and disciplined perception, and in 

 so doing has fortified itself for tasks higher, 

 wider, and incomparably more wonderful 

 than even the wisest among our ancestors 

 imagined. Like the souls in Plato's myth 

 that follow the chariot of Zeus, it has as- 

 cended to a point of vision far above the 

 earth. It is henceforth open to science to 

 transcend all we now think we know of 

 matter, and to gain new glimpses of a pro- 

 founder scheme of Cosmic Law. 



An eminent predecessor in his chair de- 

 clared that " by an intellectual necessity he 

 crossed the boundary of experimental evi- 

 dence, and discerned in that matter, which 

 we in our ignorance of its latent powers, 

 and notwithstanding our professed rever- 

 ence for its Creator, have hitherto covered 

 with opprobrium, the potency and promise 

 of all terrestrial life." I should prefer to 

 reverse the apothegm, and to say that in 

 life I see the promise and potency of all 

 forms of matter. 



In old Egyptian days a well-known in- 

 scription was carved over the portal of the 



temple of Isis : " I am whatever hath been,, 

 is, or ever will be ; and my veil no man 

 hath yet lifted." Not thus do modern 

 seekers after truth confront nature — the 

 word that stands for the baffling mysteries 

 of the universe. Steadily, unflinchingly, 

 we strive to pierce the inmost heart of Na- 

 ture, from what she is to reconstruct what 

 she has been, and to prophesy what she 

 yet shall be. Veil after veil we have lifted, 

 and her face grows more beautiful, august 

 and wonderful, with every barrier that is- 

 withdrawn. 



William Ceookes. 



RECENT ADVANCES IN 3IALAG0L0GY. 



We have received lately, though the work 

 has been some time issued, the second Lief- 

 erung of Bergh's Malacological Researches 

 on the collections made by Semper in the 

 Philippines.* The fasciculus in question 

 treats of the Pleurohrancliidw in the masterly 

 manner and with all the wealth of anatom- 

 ical detail and illustration which this author 

 has taught us to expect ft'om him. The 

 text is devoted to an exhaustive anatomical 

 account of Oscanins, beginning with the Med- 

 iterranean type 0. memhranaceus, Oscaniopsis 

 and Oscaniella Bergh, new genera, the first 

 exclusively Indo-chinese and the second 

 chiefly so, but having one Antillean repre- 

 sentative. The plates include full data on 

 two species of the eastern United States, 

 Pleurobrancluea tarda VerrilL and P. obesa 

 Verrill, the genus Koonsia, originally pro- 

 posed for the latter, being regarded as 

 identical with Pleurohraneliwa by Bergh. 



A very full and useful monograph of the- 

 DreissensildcB of the Paltearctic region has 

 been published by N. Andrusov in the Rus- 

 sian language,t the plates of which have 



* Reisen im Arcliipel der Philippinen von C. Sem- 

 per. Bd. Vir., IVte Abtb. Die Pleurobrancbiden 

 Ton Dr. Eudolph Bergh, Wiesbaden, 1897. 



tTravaux de la Soo. des Naturalistes de St. Peters- 

 bourg. Sect. G6ol. et Min., Vol. XXV., 4to, 1898,. 

 avec 20 planches phot. 



