44 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. X. No. 233 



of probabilities, occur sufficiently often to give the bank a sure 

 profit of I.I per cent on every deposit. The fallacy of those who 

 devise sure methods of defeating the bank (' martingales,' as they 

 are termed, lies in the fact that they neglect to consider that the 

 fortunes of any one gambler, compared to that of the bank, is 

 small : they prove that in the long-run they must win, forgetting 

 that they only have a short run. As a matter of fact, when their 

 schemes require the risk of a very large sum, they generally are 

 afraid to make the risk, and so leave the game with the firm con- 

 viction, that, had they but possessed a litttle more money, success 

 would have been insured. 



The gambling superstition that has probably worked more ruin 

 than any other is what they term the ' maturity of chances.' The 

 gambler says, to toss aces six times running is certainly a highly 

 improbable event : if, therefore, aces have fallen five times, it is 

 much more certain that the next throw will not fall an ace than if 

 ace had not been thrown five times. The absurdity of this doc- 

 trine, apart from its being disproved by actual trial, can be easily 

 shown. The chance of the occurrence of a certain event has no 

 meaning after the event has occurred : it then has become a cer- 

 tainty. The chances of throwing an ace are as i to 6 on each 

 throw, and entirely without reference to other throws. If I enter a 

 room and pick up a die, the chances of my throwing an ace are as 

 I to 6: to be told. afterwards that five aces had just been thrown 

 with that die, could evidently not influence the chances of my 

 throwing an ace. Yet this doctrine is defended in the books on 

 gambling, and is carried into practice at the gaming-table, to the ruin 

 of many of its adherents. 



Mr. Proctor gives very clear expositions of the fallacies underlying 

 such beliefs ; makes a forcible statement of the swindling processes 

 to which even the better class of gamblers, lottery-holders, and the 

 Hke, must resort ; and illustrates his arguments with facts derived 

 from actual experience. The book is no theorist's exposition 

 merely, — it really ought not to matter if it were, because here theory 

 and practice have been found to agree, — and is thus excellently 

 calculated to meet the purpose for which it was written. It is in 

 every respect a commendable work. Men desirous of guiding their 

 actions by reason will here find expressed the position they should 

 take on matters of chance and luck. 



Our Temperametiis ; their Study and their Teachi7ig. By ALEX- 

 ANDER Stewart. London, Crosby, Lockwood, & Co. 8°. 



Dr. Stewart gives in his preface a description of what this 

 book is. " Impressed by the frequency with which the word 

 ' temperament ' is used to account for the action that is taken not 

 only on the ordinary but on the eventful occurrences of life ; while 

 so little is known of the temperaments, that very few outside the 

 medical profession can name off-hand the four principal ones, — 

 the sanguine, the bilious, the lymphatic, and the nervous, — I have 

 endeavored to construct, from scattered and scanty material and 

 my own obseri'ation, a practical guide by which observers may 

 know the temperament of any one by looking at him, and associate 

 with it certain mental qualities and traits of character." The author 

 points out the disparity between the part the temperaments play in 

 medicine and in general literature. He accords them a more 

 definite value than expression and physiognomy, and believes them 

 more available than phrenology, for the reason that the physical 

 characteristics of the temperaments are definite, few, and readily 

 observed. 



Dr. Stewart has collated an immense mass of observations on the 

 temperaments from ancient, mediaeval, and modern literature, and 

 uses it to illustrate and expound his own argument. He first makes 

 clear the ordinarily received medical doctrine of the temperaments, 

 and then endeavors to give it added precision and scientific value. 

 Dr. Stewart himself recognizes the just limitations of the doctrine 

 which he develops. He sees, in the first place, that it applies only 

 to civilized races: and, second, since the physical characteristics 

 and the influences that modify the mental habit vary in dififerent 

 climates and countries, that it holds most forcibly with the British, 

 since it is from that nation that the distinctions have been drawn. 



Perhaps the greatest advance made by the present writer is the 

 assignment of precise form-characteristics to the different temper- 

 aments. He gives a table, in which one column contains the physi- 



cal, and the other the mental, characteristics of the four pure tem- 

 peraments. These are very full and explicit. The physical 

 characteristics are seven, — three relating to color (of the hair, eyes, 

 and complexion), and four to form (of the face, nose, neck, and 

 body). 



The nervous temperament is accorded a special chapter, that the 

 common error of confusing it with ner\'ousness may be avoided. 

 Nervousness, so far from being a normal characteristic, is described 

 as " altogether a departure from the natural or healthy manifestations 

 of the temperament." To the ner\'ous temperament is ascribed the 

 tempering, softening, and refining of the other three. " What 

 literature would be without the grace, the tenderness, the sublimity 

 of poetry, the other temperaments would be without the nervous" 

 (p. 132). After a discussion of the compound temperaments, the 

 practical applications of our knowledge of them are taken up. The 

 aid they may render in education, in the choice of a congenial and 

 fitting profession, and in the promotion of health, is developed in a 

 most interesting way. By way of illustrating the form-character- 

 istics mentioned, and to enable obsei-vers to classify faces by them, 

 a number of engravings are given from Lodge's ' Historical Por- 

 traits.' Dr. Stewart has certainly given us a most entertaining and 

 valuable study in anthropology, and the publishers have done their 

 full share in making it attractive to the reader. 



Report of the Scientific Results of the Exploring Voyage of the 

 ' Challenger.' Zoology, vol. xix. London, Government. 4°. 



In this volume, Hubrecht reports on the Nemertea, his contribu- 

 tion comprising one hundred and fifty pages and sixteen finely 

 drawn plates. The ' Challenger ' nemerteans were few in number, 

 and only some twenty stations afforded specimens. Of these sta- 

 tions, only five were over one hundred fathoms, and only three of 

 these exceeded one thousand fathoms. Carinina grata and Cere- 

 bratulus angusticeps were obtained from these three, but the last 

 species was dredged elsewhere at a depth of only ten fathoms. 

 The most aberrant types were the above-mentioned Carifiina and 

 the pelagic Pelagonemertes. The section-cutter was the chief in- 

 strument of investigation, and the number of sections made ex- 

 ceeded 19,500. The report is divided into a systematic and an 

 anatomical part, followed by a chapter on theoretical considera- 

 tions. The latter will afford reading of much interest to those who 

 are not engaged in the study of nemerteans. The conclusion 

 reached by the author is, that " more than any other class of in- 

 vertebrate animals, the Nemertea have preserved in their organiza- 

 tion traces of such features as must have been characteristic of 

 those animal forms by which a transition has been gradually 

 brought about from the archiccelous diploblastic (coelenterate) type 

 to those enterocoelous Triploblastica that have afterward devel- 

 oped into the Char data ( Urochorda, Hemichorda, Cephalochorda, 

 and Vertebratd)." This statement excludes the idea of any direct 

 ancestral relations between Nemertea and Chordata, and fully 

 recognizes the points of agreement between Balanoglossus and 

 Amphioxt{s. 



The clear and weighty arguments by which the author sustains 

 this proposition do not admit of condensation. 



The reports on the Cimiacea and Pkyllocarida are by Prof. G. 

 O. Sars, where that distinguished naturalist finds himself on con- 

 genial ground. The number of species of the former group ob- 

 tained by the 'Challenger' is fifteen, ranging, among them, from 

 the surface to 2,050 fathoms in bathymetric distribution. In addi- 

 tion to the more purely systematic part. Professor Sars discusses 

 the derivation of the group, and gives a summary of the charac- 

 ters of all the families, and enumerates the genera of which each 

 is composed. The memoir is illustrated by eleven plates, distin- 

 guished by that accuracy and beauty which characterize all the 

 work of Professor Sars' facile pencil. 



To the single genus of recent Pkyllocarida heretofore known 

 (all the others being palaeozoic fossils), the ' Challenger' expedition 

 added two new generic types, which are naturally of great interest. 

 The illustration and description of these take but three plates and 

 some thirty odd pages of text, in which the author fully discusses 

 the history, morphology, and development of the group, and the 

 homologies of the several parts in the Nebaliida with those of 

 other recent Crustacea. As regards the phylogenetic relations, the 



