130 MR. HERBERT SPENCER’S SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY. JuNE, 1890. 
tlie article “ Eye,” in Chambers’ Encyclopaedia, or Dic¬ 
tionary of Universal Knowledge. In that enlightened, and up 
to date, monograph, Dr. Lundie writes: “In vision we do 
not look outwards towards the object, but inwards only, 
towards the object as mirrored [i. e., manufactured] at the 
base of our own eye ; the essential factors of vision—the 
rods and cones of the bacillary layer of the retina or Jacob’s 
membrane, which are present by millions, being thus turned 
away from the light.” This seems a perfect physical proof 
that the quasi-outer, or objective world, so far as we can or 
need see, is only an individual and subjective image of what 
Locke calls “ I know not what," formed at the bottom of our 
own optical apparatus.” I quote Chambers’s Cyclopaedia as a 
popular and accessible work of reference. The same morpho¬ 
logical proof of automorphic Monism is more fully elaborated 
in Sir John Lubbock’s Senses of Animals (International Scien¬ 
tific Series), and in other recent handbooks dealing with this 
crucial problem. The reflected image on the retina, corrected 
by the “ Mind" points the same moral, that all we see is but 
an Autopsy. Kepler’s Supplement to Vitellio is no satisfactory 
rationale of the puzzle; no “ explanation ” of an ultimate fact 
being possible or necessary. It is entirely ultra vires rationis 
(cerebri), and therefore, in sound science, quite out of court. 
R. L. 
MR. HERBERT SPENCER’S SEVENTIETH 
BIRTHDAY. 
At the cxxxvi th meeting of the Sociological Section of the 
Birmingham Natural History and Microscopical Society, held 
at the Mason College, on Tuesday, 6tli May, 1890, the follow¬ 
ing correspondence was read, and ordered to be entered on 
the minutes of the meeting :— 
“To Herbert Spencer, Esq. 
“ Sir, — We, the undersigned, past and present members 
of the Sociological Section of the Birmingham Natural History 
and Microscopical Society—and other friends who have 
assisted at the meetings—having been for several years 
pleasantly and profitably associated together in the study of 
your Synthetic Philosophy, desire to congratulate you on the 
attainment of the full measure of seventy years of life. We 
rejoice to know that, notwithstanding the severe and con¬ 
tinual strain on heart and mind which your unique and mag¬ 
nificent labours have involved, you are still giving to us, to 
the world, and to posterity, words of grace and wisdom. 
