370 The Loan Collection of Scientific Apparatus [July, 
guided by their own reasoning powers. There are no pre- 
arranged rules which, when birds leave their nests, they 
must stridtly follow to exist. Given that knowledge which 
comes through diredt and indirect instruction from the 
parent-birds, and a young bird, having the world before it, 
exercises just those mental powers that man exercises, but 
limited just so far as its own wants are less than man’s 
wants as man. Finally, in the chance occurrence of some 
peculiar habit, have we not a trace of the former mode of 
life of some far-distant ancestral form ; and, in the unde- 
niable irregularity of all habits, can we not discern unmis- 
takable indications of the gradual adoption of every habit, 
just as the various specific forms themselves gradually 
emerged from the archaic creature that, appearing in the 
dim past, foreshadowed the gigantic condor of the Andes, 
and the petulant humming-birds of our summer gardens ? 
VII. THE LOAN COLLECTION OF SCIENTIFIC 
APPARATUS AT SOUTH KENSINGTON. 
S HE English Government seems, at last, as if it were 
becoming alive to the fadt that the wealth and com- 
mercial prosperity of the country are, to a large 
extent, due to the discoveries and researches of scientific 
men. While the respective Governments of America, 
France, Germany, and other countries have established 
scientific universities, and recognised in numerous ways the 
claims of scientific workers, the prosecution of all branches 
of scientific research in England has been almost entirely 
left to private enterprise. But we suppose we may take the 
present Exhibition of Scientific Apparatus as a proof that 
Science will henceforth have its position acknowledged in 
the deliberations of the Government of England, and receive 
some small share of the money expended for the honour and 
welfare of the country. The great success of the present 
Exhibition has been widely proclaimed by the whole of the 
public press. Some journals have, it is true, doubted the 
advantage of bringing from a distance instruments of mere 
historic value : if, however, they are the means of recalling 
to the minds of our legislators and the public generally the 
