SCIENCE. 



FRIDAY, APRIL 17, 1885. 



COMMENT AND CRITICISM. 



The publication of Prof. A. Graham Bell's 

 final memoir upon the formation of a deaf 

 variety of the human race shows the extent 

 and thoroughness of his investigation, which 

 has already led to practical results in shaping, 

 in certain states, the public economy in regard 

 to deaf-mutes (Science, y. 207). To meet the 

 claims of our readers, we briefly recapitulate 

 Professor Bell's course of argument. He 

 shows, 1°, that there is a marked grouping 

 of deaf-mutes into families, certain surnames 

 recurring frequently, and that the proportion 

 and number of congenitally deaf mutes has in- 

 increased in America, therefore the cause is 

 probably an increasing hereditary tendency ; 

 2°, that, of the deaf-mutes who marry at the 

 present time, not less than eighty per cent 

 marry deaf-mates, while, of those who married 

 during the early half of the present century, 

 the proportion who married deaf-mutes was 

 much smaller ; 3°, that children having deaf- 

 mute relatives are more likely to be congeni- 

 tally deaf-mute than the children of the people 

 at large (to illustrate this fact, he gives de- 

 tailed accounts of several families) ; 4°, that 

 the indications derived from the study of the 

 actual census-tables are, that the congenital 

 deaf-mutes of the country are increasing at a 

 greater rate than the population at large, and 

 the deaf-mute children of deaf-mutes at a 

 greater rate than the congenital deaf-mute 

 population ; 5°, that the intermarriage of deaf- 

 mutes is mainly fostered by bringing the deaf- 

 mutes together in institutions, and isolating 

 them thereb}', and b}' teaching them a lan- 

 guage (of signs) the people at large do not 

 use. 



liorate the condition of deaf-mutes as the 

 direct cause of an increase in the number of 

 these unfortunates. A good purpose is the 

 father of an evil result. What a strange an- 

 tithesis ! How striking the important lesson 

 it teaches us of the efficienc}* of the scientific 

 spirit as a guide in practical affairs, — that 

 spirit which obtains thorough knowledge, and 

 follows out to the end the anal}' sis of cause 

 and effect ! The scientific mind, in its best 

 form, is equipped to discover, to derive from 

 new premises their legitimate conclusion : it 

 is reason at its maximum power. This is not 

 the first time that the inventor of the telephone 

 has proved the efficiency of a mind of this 

 quality in achieving results of immediate and 

 far-reaching importance, and added new dig- 

 nity to science in the estimation not only of 

 thoughtful persons, but also of practical-mind- 

 ed Americans. 



Professor Bell, therefore, regards the philan- 

 thropic efforts which have been made to ame- 



No. 115.-1885. 



The doctrine that the bodies of all the higher 

 plants and animals are aggregations of myriads 

 of minute, and in many respects independent, 

 cells, had its origin some fifty years ago. 

 Though now universally accepted b} r biologists 

 as an essentially correct generalization, it has 

 not } T et become one of those scientific facts 

 widely known to, and accepted by, the general 

 educated public. To the ' average man,' the 

 proposition that his body is a collection of 

 thousands of microscopic masses of living 

 matter, each of which lives its life in more or 

 less harmony with the rest, but to a great ex- 

 tent without any reference to them, is an as- 

 tounding one. He finds it nearly impossible 

 to realize that in certain respects he is rather 

 a nation than an individual ; that his bodily 

 life is the algebraical sum of the living and 

 doing of hundreds of thousands of cells, much 

 as the vitality and activity of a nation is the 

 resultant of the actions of all its inhabitants. 

 His physical life is to him an entity. In con- 

 sequence, there is nothing which the plrysiolo- 



