358 
i June, 
Analyses of Books. 
we find the very best class of minds among them absolutely 
revolting at the very idea of such a science. Socrates, for 
instance, had no patience with it.” Now, it seems to us that 
Mr. Welling somewhat misapprehends the character of the 
Socratic Apostasis, That he hated what we now call Science 
is indisputable. That his influence with that of his followers 
and imitators has mainly contributed to the exaltation of words 
and dreams and to the negleCt of things which has so greatly 
impeded the advancement of science, and which is even yet 
defended by the “ poor humanist,” is equally true. But was he 
really one of the best class of Greek minds? Would Greek 
incapacity in Science have remained a conspicuous stumbbng- 
block but for the ascendancy gained by him and by his school ? 
To both these questions we think we may venture to reply in 
the negative. 
To the remainder of this suggestive discourse we have to 
return on some future occasion. 
At the General Meeting of the Society Mr. T. C. Russell read 
a paper on the glaciers of the high Sierra of California. He 
points out that the glaciers of the Sierra Nevada were not con- 
nected with a northern ice-sheet, but were of mere local origin 
and of the same type as the Swiss glaciers of the present day, 
although of far greater magnitude. 
A paper read by Mr. C. V. Riley on “ Recent Advances in 
Economic Entomology,” contains some passages on which issue 
may be well joined. The author pleads for what is commonly, 
though not quite accurately, known as “ applied science.” He 
writes : the best results follow when the pure and the 
applied go hand in hand — when theory and practice are wedded 
together. But the most profound investigations are generally in- 
capable of any direCt application. Who, e.g., can reduce to 
praCtice the results of Darwin, of Wallace, of Lyell, and of many, 
if not most, of their compeers ? He says again, in the same 
spirit : Erstwhile the naturalist was honoured in proportion as he 
dealt with the dry bones of his science. Pedantry and taxonomy 
overshadowed biologic research. We may ask with not unjusti- 
fiable surprise, where are the pedantry and taxonomy in Gilbert 
White, in Waterton, in quaint old Rosel, in Swammerdam, and 
in Leuwenhoeck ? 
The faCt is that in physics and chemistry discoveries often, 
and that rapidly, pass into or become intertwined with inventions. 
But in biology, palaeontology, psychology, this is not the case. 
We find here, save incidentally and collaterally, nothing for 
which a patent may be taken out and a company got up. 
Mr. Burnet discussed the question “why the eyes of (some) 
animals shine in the dark ? ” This is not due, as some suppose, 
to phosphorescence, but to light reflected from the bottom of the 
eye, which light is diffused on account of the hypermetropic 
condition prevalent in the lower animals. Human eyes, affeCted 
