100 
REVIEWS. 
searches. Not that the success obtained is at all times commensurate 
with the greatness of his preparations. Think of a zoologist encompass¬ 
ing sea and land to behold a large specimen of the thick-horned ane¬ 
mone. Yet, not only does Mr. Lewes do this, but, “ stretching (him¬ 
self) on a sloping bank, leaning into a pool a foot deep/’ commences to 
bang away at a chisel, and having succeeded in securing his prey, tells us 
that “ he has cost me twenty minutes’ hard labour; but he was worth 
it.” 
Not content, however, with employing his hammer and chisel in the 
above praiseworthy manner, Mr. Lewes attempts, with equal vigour, to 
solve some of the higher problems of physiology, and from his own ac¬ 
count of himself it would appear that no one yet born ever came so well 
prepared for such a task. He informs us that he “ had been led to read 
extensively respecting the structure and functions of marine animals;” 
that he “ penetrated deeper and deeper into the mysteries of these va¬ 
rious organisms;” that “the typical forms took possession of me;” 
that “ this observation was the starting-point of a long series of inves¬ 
tigations;” that he had discovered “ facts important as well as novel,” 
and made “ scores of dissections.” 
What then may we not expect from one of so great ability, who 
performed such numbers of experiments after so long a course of prepa¬ 
ration? Grievously, however, have we been disappointed. The inves¬ 
tigations of Mr. Lewes lead to nihil His ignorance is only surpassed 
by his egotism. Having asked the question, “ Ho the Actinia digest at 
all ?” he enters into a tedious and quibbling discussion as to the precise 
sense in which the word “ digestion” is to be employed, and finally ar¬ 
rives at the conclusion that the Actinia do not digest, since they have 
no proper chylaqueous fluid. He infers this from the fact that the fluids 
contained in their bodies have no action on test-paper; and he confi¬ 
dently affirms that food is discharged from the stomach of these animals 
without having undergone any disintegration. We need hardly state 
that both the facts here recorded, and the inferences therefrom, are for 
the most part incorrect. Elsewhere, however, they have been sufficiently 
refuted. 
The digestive function in the Actinia is not the only question re¬ 
lating to their economy which Mr. Lewes undertakes to decide. He 
attempts to prove by a series of observations evidently imperfect in 
themselves, and still less to be depended on in a writer of whose fitness 
for this kind of scientific investigation the world has been hitherto in 
ignorance, that the filiferous capsules of the Polypes are destitute of 
urticating properties. Yet we are assured that “ no sooner did I submit 
the question to that rigorous verification which Science imperiously .re¬ 
quires, than it became clear to me that my illustrious predecessors, 
Wagner, Erdl, Siebold, Quatreffages, Ehrenberg, Agassiz, and Owen,— 
men whom the most presumptuous would be slow to contradict—had 
admitted the point without proof, because it wore so plausible an air— 
“that, whereas they have only hypothesis on their side, I have the 
accumulated and overwhelming weight of experimental evidence.” And 
