726 Editors’ Table. [| October, 
to these acts was set forth in the light of recent investigations, 
especially those conducted by the aid of the plethysmograph. 
The identity of conduct of vegetable and animal protoplasm 
under stimuli and reagents, was regarded as warranting the con- 
clusion that the properties of animal protoplasm have a previous 
existence in the plant, and that the solution of the vital question 
in the lowest fungus will solve the problem for the highest 
' vertebrate. thi 
The address then considers the relations of the forces displayed 
by living bodies to those exhibited by the space-filling ether. In 
accordance with late usage he discards the term potential energy, 
and regards the energy of the supposed molecular movements 0 
the ether as representing what was originally intended by that 
expression. He closes by remarking, “ Is it a wonder that out of 
such a reservoir, the power by which we live should irresistibly 
rush into the organism and appear as the transmuted energy 
which we recognize in the phenomena of life?” Further than 
this speculation can not go, but such language is useful if only as 
an indication that the field of vital phenomena is not necessarily 
restricted to our planet or even to our system.’ 
We note here that Prof. Barker has not touched on the ques- 
tion of consciousness in his address, and it might be supposed 
_ that he does not regard it as an essential element in the problem. 
This omission may be explained on the supposition that he does - 
not know what to do with it; for it certainly does not seem to 
have any appropriate niche in the system of the purely physico- 
vitalists. For our own part we cannot escape it in considering 
the evolution of forms; that is as modifying growth nutrition, 
through molar movements. ey 
Mr. Agassiz’s address is an exposition of the palzontological 
and embryonic histories of the Achini, with a discussion of their 
bearing on the question of evolution. He refers to the early 
labors of Profs. Agassiz and Vogt on the paleontology and em- 
bryology of fishes as the starting point of discussion of the doc- 
trine of parallelism. After a thorough review of the facts, Mr. 
Agassiz finds the history of the Æchini to present a conformity to 
the general law, and that it exhibits, moreover, certain peculiari- 
ties. The rule is, that each character taken separately presents an 
“exact parallelism” between its paleontological and its embry- 
onic histories, but the characters taken coljectively, in the com- 
binations which constitute species, do not present such a parallel. 
In other words, that no extinct species, taken as a whole, 1S 
identical with a transitional stage of any recent species. He 
says, “ Any attempt to take up a combination of characters, Or 4 
system of combinations, is sure to lead us to indefinite problems 
far beyond our power to grasp.” Here we see the author wrest- 
ng Penn Monthly, 1875, p. 574. AMERICAN NAURALIST, 1879, 420, and 1880, 
p: eo i 3 
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