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No. 50.—R.P.A. CHEAP REPRINTS
With 56 Illustrations
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THE KINGDOM
OF MAN
'»a^i
BY SIR RAY LANKESTER
•
NEW AND REVISED EDITION
WATTS & CO.,
17 JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C.
.......................
ALSO IN CLOTH, ONE SHILLING NET
i
■ -7=
�Cranial Dome of Pitheoanthr opus erectus from river gravel in Java.
Skull of a Greek from an ancient cemetery.
�THE
KINGDOM OF MAN
BY
E. RAY LANKESTEB, K.G.B., M.A., D.Sc., LL.D., F.R.S.
HONORARY FELLOW OF EXETER COLLEGE AND HONORARY STUDENT OF CHRIST CHURCH,
OXFORD; MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE ; EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON J LATE PRESIDENT OF THE BRITISH
ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE J LATE
DIRECTOR OF THE NATURAL HISTORY DEPARTMENTS
OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM
[issued
for the rationalist press association, limited]
London:
WATTS & CO.,
17 JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.O.
1912
�SIR RAY LANKESTER’S POPULAR
BOOKS ON SCIENCE.
EXTINCT ANIMALS.
With a portrait of the author and 218 illustrations. New
Edition, 1909 ; price 2s. 6d. (Constable and Co.)
The Times says: “There has been published no book on this
subject combining so successfully the virtues of accuracy and
' attractiveness.”
The Athenceum says: “Described with a masterly hand.”
SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR.
Fifth Edition, 1911; price 6s.
(Methuen and Co.)
A series of chapters selected from the well-known weekly articles
by the author originally published in the Daily Telegraph, revised
and illustrated by numerous drawings. The subjects treated
include Darwin’s Theory, the Story of the Common Eel, the
Dragon, Oysters, Sleep, Comets, Tadpoles, Gossamer, Hop-blight,
the Most Ancient Men, and many others.
THE EASY CHAIR SERIES.
By
SIR RAY LANKESTER, K.C.B., F.R.S.
Annual volumes similar in origin and character to the preceding
are in preparation. The first, now ready for press, illustrated with
numerous plates and text-figures, is entitled
DIVERSIONS OF A NATURALIST,
Price 6s., and will be published by Simpkin and Marshall,
Paternoster Row, London, in July, 1912.
A few copies of the First (Library) Edi
tion of “The Kingdom of Man” may
still be procured, price 2s. 6d. net
(inland postage 5d.).
(Watts & Co.)
�DESCRIPTION OE THE FRONTISPIECE.
The upper figure is from a cast of the celebrated specimen found in a river gravel in Java, probably
of as great age as the palaeolithic gravels of Europe. Though rightly to be regarded as a “ man,” the
creature which possessed this skull has been given the n&me Pithecanthropus. The shape of the cranial
dome differs from that of a well-developed European human skull (shown in the lower photograph, that
of a Greek skull) in the same features as do the very ancient prehistoric skulls from the Belgian caves
of Spey, and from the Neanderthal of the Rhineland. These differences are, however, measurably
greater in the Javanese skull.
The three great features of difference are: (1) the great size of the eyebrow ridges (the part below
and in front of A in the figures) in the Java skull; (2) the much greater relative height of the middle and
back part of the cranial dome (lines e and/) in the Greek skull; (3) the much greater prominence in the
Greek skull of the front part of the cranial dome—the prefrontal area or frontal “ boss ” (the part in
front of the line A C, the depth of which is shown by the line d).
The parts of the cranial cavity thus obviously more capacious in the Greek skull are precisely those
which are small in the Apes, and overlie those convolutions of the brain which have been specially
developed in Man as compared with the highest Apes.
The line A B in both the figures is the ophryo-tentorial line. It is drawn from the ophryon (the
mid-joint in the line drawn across the narrowest part of the frontal bone just above the eyebrow ridges),
.Which corresponds externally to the most anterior limit of the brain, to the extra-tentorial point
(between the occipital ridges), and is practically the base line of the cerebrum. The lines e and / are
perpendiculars on this base line, the first half-way between A and B, the second half-way between the
first and the extra-tentorial point.
C is the point known to craniologists as “ bregma,” the meeting point of the frontal and the two
parietal bones. .
The line A C is drawn as a straight line joining A and C; but if the skull is accurately posed it
corresponds to the edge of the plane at right angles to the sagittal plane of the skull—which traverses
both bregma (C) and ophryon (A)—and where it “cuts” the skull marks off the prefrontal area or boss,
(See for the full-face view of this area in the two skulls Figs. 1 and 2.) The line d is a perpendicular let
fall from the point of greatest prominence of the prefrontal area on to the prefrontal plane. It indicates
the depth of the prefrontal cerebral region. Drawn on both sides on the surface of the bone and looked
at from the front (the white dotted line in Figs. 1 and 2), it gives the maximum breadth of the prefrontal
area.
By dividing the ophryo-tentorial line into 100 units, and using those units as measures, the depths of
the brain cavity in the regions plumbed by the lines d, e, and/ can be expressed numerically and their
differences in a series of skulls stated in percentage of the ophryo-tentorial length.
�WONDERS are many ! And none is there greater than Man, who
Steers his ship over the sea driven on by the south wind,
Cleaving the threatening swell of the waters around him,
Wears away year after year with deeply-cut furrows,
Wears as he drags the sharp plough to and fro with his horses,
Th’ Earth-mother, eldest of Gods, inexhaustible, ceaseless.
He captures the gay-hearted birds ; he entangles adroitly
Creatures that live on the land and the brood of the ocean,
Spreading his well-woven nets. Man full of devices !
The beasts of the forest, the cattle that roam on the moorland
Artfully hath he subdued, and the shaggy-maned horses;
Yokes grip the necks of the masterful bulls of the mountain.
Speech and swift thought free as wind, the building of cities,
Shelters to ward off the arrows of rain and to temper
Sharp-biting frost—all these hath he taught himself. Surely
Stratagem hath he for all that comes 1 Never the future
Finds him resourceless ! Deftly he combats grievous diseases,
Oft from their grip doth he free himself. Death alone vainly—
Vainly he seeks to escape; ’gainst Death he is helpless.
Man with his skill past belief and his endless invention
Oft reaches happiness ; oft stumbles on to disaster.
Chorus from the “Antigone" of Sophocles.
�Contents
PAGE
Chapter
I—NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
1
Chapter II.—THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE (1881-1906)
.
.
.
CHAPTER III.—NATURE’S REVENGES: THE SLEEPING SICKNESS'
.
37
.
95
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Frontispiece
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
Profile views of the
Cranial Dome of Pithe
canthropus erectus, the
ape-like man from an
ancient river gravel in
Java, and of a Greek
skull
1.—-Frontal view of the Cranial
Dome of Pithecanthropus
2.—Frontal view of the same
Greek skull as that shown in
the frontispiece
3.—-Eoliths, of “ borer ” shape,
from Ightham, Kent .
4.—Eoliths of trinacrial shape,
from Ightham, Kent .
5.—Brain casts of four large
Mammals ....
6.—Spironema pallidum, the
microbe of syphilis dis
covered by Fritz Schaudinn .
7.—The Canals in Mars
8.—The Canals in Mars
9.—Becquerel's shadow - print
obtained by rays from
Uranium Salt
10.—Diagrams of the visible lines
of the Spectrum given by
incandescent Helium and
Radium
....
11.—The transformation of Ra
dium Emanation into Helium
(spectra)
....
Fig. 12. —Dry-plate photograph of a
Nebula and surrounding stars
Jelly-fish
Limnocodium
14. —Polyp of Limnocodium
15. —Sense-organ of Limnocodium
16. —The Freshwater Jelly-fish of
Lake Tanganyika
17. —Sir Harry Johnston’s speci
men of the Okapi
18. —Bandoliers cut from the
striped skin of the Okapi
19. —Skull of the horned male of
the Okapi ....
20. —The metamorphosis of the
young of the common Eel .
21. —A unicellular parasite of the
common Octopus, producing
spermatozoa
22. —The Coccidium, a microscopic
parasite of the Rabbit, pro
ducing spermatozoa
23. —Spermatozoa of a unicellular
parasite inhabiting a Centi
pede .....
24. —The motile fertilising ele
ments (antherozoids or sper
matozoa) of a peculiar cone
bearing tree, the Gycas revoluta .....
25. —The gigantic extinct Reptile
Triceratops ....
26. —A large carnivorous Reptile
PAGE
51
Fig. 13. —The Freshwater
Fig.
Fig.
Fig.
9
Fig.
Fig.
9
Fig.
10
Fig.
11
Fig.
13
Fig.
21
24
25
Fig.
41
Fig.
43
Fig.
47
Fig.
vii
54
54
54
54
56
56
56
57
59
59
59
59
60
�viii
CONTENTS
PAGE
from the Triassic rocks of
North Russia
...
FIG. 27.—The curious &sh Drepanaspis,
from the Old Red Sandstone
of Germany ....
FIG. 28.—The oldest Fossil Fish known
FIG. 29.—The skull and lower jaw of
the ancestral Elephant,
Palceomastodon, from Egypt
FIG. 30.—The latest discovered skull of
Palaiomastodon ...
FIG. 31.—Skulls of Meritherium, an
Elephant ancestor, from the
Upper Eocene of Egypt
.
FIG. 32.—The nodules on the roots of
bean-plants and the nitrogen
fixing microbe, Bacillus
radicola, which produces
them .....
FIG. 33.—The continuity of the proto
plasm of vegetable cells
.
FIG. 34.—Diagram of the structures
present in a typical organic
“cell”
....
FIG. 35.—The number of the Chromo
somes .....
FIG. 36.—The number of the Chromo
somes .....
FIGS. 37-42.—Phagocytes engulfing
disease germs — drawn by
Metschnikoff
...
PAGE
FIG. 43.—A Phagocyte containing three
61
Spirilla, the germs of relaps
ing fever, which it has en
gulfed
.... 81
61 FIG. 44.—The life-history of the Malaria
61
Parasite
.... 84
FIG. 45.—The first blood-cell parasite
described, the Lankesterella
62
of Frog’s blood ... 86
FIG. 46.—Various kinds of Trypano
63
somes .......................................... 87
FIG. 47.—The Laboratory of the Marine
Biological Association on the
64
Citadel Hill, Plymouth
. 93
FIG. 48.—The Tsetze fly, Glossina
morsitans .... 103
FIG. 49.—The Trypanosome of Frog’s
blood ..... 104
66 FIG. 50.—’The Trypanosome which
causes the Sleeping Sickness 105
67 FIG. 51.—The Trypanosome of the
disease called “ Dourine ” . 106
FIGS. 52-56.—Stages in the growth and
68
multiplication of a Trypano
some which lives for part of
69
its life in the blood of the
little owl Athene noctua,
76
and for the other part in the
gut of the common gnat
(Gulex)
.
.
.
107-10
81
�PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
This little volume is founded on three discourses which I have slightly
modified for the pfesent purpose, and have endeavoured to render
interesting by the introduction of illustrative process blocks, which are
described sufficiently fully to form a large extension of the original text.
The first, entitled “ Nature’s Insurgent Son,” formed, under another
title, the Romanes lecture at Oxford in 1905. Its object is to exhibit
in brief the “Kingdom of Man,” to show that there is undue neglect in
the taking over of that possession by mankind, and to urge upon our
Universities the duty of acting the leading part in removing that
neglect.
The second is an account, which served as the presidential address
to the British Association at York in 1906, of the progress made in the
last quarter of a century towards the assumption of his kingship by
slowly-moving Man.
The third, reprinted from the Quarterly Review, is a more detailed
account of recent attempts to deal with a terrible disease—the Sleeping
Sickness of tropical Africa—and furnishes an example of one of the
innumerable directions in which Man brings down disaster on his head
by resisting the old rule of selection of the fit and destruction of the
unfit, so that he is painfully forced to the conclusion that knowledge of
Nature must be sought and control of her processes eventually obtained.
I am glad to be able to state that as a result of the representations of the
Tropical Diseases Committee of the Royal Society, and, as I am told,
in some measure in consequence of the explanation of the state of
things given in this essay, funds have been provided by the Colonial
Office for the support of a professorship of Protozoology in the University
of London, to which Mr. E. A. Minchin has been appointed. It is
recognised that the only way in which we can hope to deal effectually
with such diseases as the Sleeping Sickness is by a greatly increased
knowledge of the nature and life-history of the parasitic Protozoa which
produce those diseases.
I have to thank Mr. John Murray for permission to reprint the
article on Sleeping Sickness, and I am also greatly indebted to scientific
ix
�X
PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION
colleagues for assistance in the survey of progress given in the second
discourse. Among these I desire especially to mention Mr. Frederick
Soddy, F.B.S., Professor H. H. Turner, F.B.S., Professor Sydney
Vines, F.B.S., Mr. MacDougal of Oxford, and Professor Sherrington,
F.B.S. To Mr. Perceval Lowell I owe my thanks for permission to
copy two of his drawings of Mars, and to the Boyal Astronomical
Society for the loan of the star-picture on p. 51.
E. Bay Lankester,
•
January, 1907,
PBEFACE TO THE PBESENT EDITION
The publication of a cheap edition of the Kingdom of Man has made
it necessary for me to revise the text so far as to alter here and there
the terms of reference to events and discoveries which are now six
years older than they were when the book was first printed. I have
made some of these corrections in the text and inserted others as
footnotes enclosed in square brackets, and have also drawn attention to
some newly ascertained facts, and to recent events which bear upon
statements made in the earlier edition. An improved figure showing
the relative size of the cerebral hemispheres in the extinct mammal
Dinoceras and large mammals now living has been substituted for that
previously published.
I have willingly agreed to the proposal of the Bationalist Press
Association to issue this book in a form and at a price which render it
readily accessible to a large body of readers, since, next to the search for
new knowledge, there is no enterprise in which I so gladly take part as
that of endeavouring to assist others to gain an acquaintance with the
results of the investigation of Nature and an understanding of the
supreme importance of that investigation to mankind.
E. Bay Lankester,
Boiirnemouth, February, 1912.
�THE KINGDOM OF MAN
Chapter I.
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
same at the present day as it has been
in the past: as commonly used, it is a
word of varied meanings and limita
tions, so that misconception and con
fusion is liable to be associated with
it. By the professed student of modern
sciences it is usually understood as a
name for the entire mechanism of the
universe, the kosmos in all its parts;
and it is in this sense that I use it.
But many still identify “ Nature ” with
a limited portion of that great system,
and even retain for it a special appli
cation to the animals and plants of
this earth and their immediate sur
roundings. Thus we have the term
“natural history,” and the French
term les sciences naturelies, limited to
the study of the more immediate and
concrete forms of animals, plants, and
crystals. There is some justification
for separating the conception of Nature
as specially concerned in the produc
tion and maintenance of living things
from that larger Nature which em
braces, together with this small but
deeply significant area, the whole ex
panse of the heavens in the one direc
tion, and Man himself in the other.
2.—The Word “Nature.”
Giordano Bruno, who a little more
The signification attached to the than three hundred years ago visited
word “Nature” is by no means the Oxford and expounded his views, was
1.—The Outlook.
It has become more and more a
matter of conviction to me—and I
believe that I share that conviction
with a large body of fellow students
both in this country and other civilised
States—that the time has arrived when
the true relation of Nature to Man
has been so clearly ascertained that it
should be more generally known than
is at present the case, and that this
knowledge should form far more largely
than it does at this moment the object
of human activity and endeavour—that
it should be, in fact, the guide of State
government, the trusted basis of the
development of human communities.
That it is not so already, that men
should still allow their energies to run
in other directions, appears to some of
us a thing so monstrous, so injurious
to the prosperity of our fellow men,
that we must do what lies within our
power to draw attention to the con
ditions and circumstances which attend
this neglect, the evils arising from it,
and the benefits which must follow
from its abatement.
�2
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON '
perhaps the first to perceive and teach
the unity of this greater Nature, anti
cipating thus, in his prophetic vision,
the conclusion which we now accept
as the result of an accumulated mass
of evidence. Shakespeare came into
touch with Bruno’s conception, and
has contrasted the more limited and a
larger (though not the largest) view of
Nature in the words of Perdita and
Polyxenes. Says Perdita:—
.......the fairest flowers o’ the season
Are our carnations, and streak’d gillyvors,
Which some call Nature’s bastards; of that
kind
Our rustic garden’s barren ; and I care not
To get slips of them.......For I have heard it
said,
There is an art which, in their piedness,
shares
With great creating nature.
To which Polyxenes replies :—
Say there be—
Yet nature is made better by no mean,
But nature makes that mean; so, over that
art,
Which, you say, adds to nature, is an art
That nature makes. You see, sweet maid,
we marry
A gentle scion to the wildest stock ;
And make conceive a bark of baser kind
By bud of nobler race ; this is an art
Which does mend nature—change it, rather :
but
The art itself is nature.
The larger proportion of so-called
educated people even at the present
day have not got beyond Perdita’s
view of Nature. They regard the
territory of Nature as a limited one,
the playground or sport of all sorts of
non-natural demons and fairies, spirits
and occult agencies. Apart from any
definite scheme or conception of these
operations, they personify Nature, and
attribute a variety of virtues and ten
dencies to her for which there is no
justification. We are told, according
to the fancy of the speaker, that such
a course is in accordance with Nature;
that another course is contrary to
Nature; we are urged to return to
Nature, and we are also urged to resist
Nature. We hear that Nature will
find a remedy for every ill, that Nature
is just, that Nature is cruel, that
Nature is sweet and our loving mother.
On the one hand, Man is regarded as
outside of and opposed to Nature, and
his dealings are contrasted favourably
or unfavourably with those of Nature.
On the other hand, we are informed
that Man must, after all, submit to
Nature, and that it is useless to oppose
her. These contradictory views are,
in fact, fragments of various systems
of philosophy of various ages, in which
the word “ Nature ” has been assigned
equally various limitations and exten
sions. Without attempting to discuss
the history and justification of these
different uses of the word “ Nature,”
I think that I may here use the word
“ Nature ” as indicating the entire
kosmos of which this cooling globe,
with all upon it, is a portion.
3.—Na trnre-S earc hers.
The discovery of regular processes,
of expected effects following upon
specified antecedents, of constant pro
perties and qualities in the material
around him, has from the earliest
recorded times been a chief occupation
of Man, and has led to the attainment
by Man of an extraordinarily complex
control of the conditions in which his
life is carried on. But it was not until
Bruno’s conception of the unity of
terrestrial nature with that of the
kosmos had commended itself that a
�NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
3
knowledge of Greek grammar is the
traditional and immemorial occupation
of Oxford students, that until the
modern days of the eighteenth century
(“ modern ” in the history of Oxford)
Greek was less known in Oxford than
Hebrew is at present, and that the
study of Nature—Nature-knowledge
and Nature-control—was the appro
priate occupation of her learned men.
It is, indeed, a fact that the very
peculiar classical education at present
insisted on in Oxford, and imposed by
her on the public schools of .the
country, is a modern innovation, an
unintentional and, in a biological
sense, “morbid” outgrowth of that
“ Humanism ” to which a familiarity
with the dead languages was, but is no
1 The foundation, of the Royal Society, of
London is most intimately connected with longer, the pathway.
deliberate and determined investigation
of natural processes, with a view to
tfteir more complete apprehension, was
Instituted. One of the earliest and most
active steps in this direction was the
foundation, less than 250 years ago,
of the Royal Society of London for
the Promotion of Natural Knowledge,
by a body of students who had organ
ised their conferences and inquiries
whilst resident in Oxford.1
All over Western Europe such asso
ciations or academies for the building
up of the New Philosophy (as it was
called here) came into existence. It is
a fact which is strangely overlooked at
the present day, when the assumption
is made that the acquirement of a
the University of Oxford. Dr. Wallis, an
original member, writes :—“ I take its first
ground and foundation to have been in
London about the year 1645, when Dr.
Wilkins and others met weekly at a certain
day and hour........About the year 1648-9
some of our company were removed to Oxford;
first Dr. Wilkins, then I, and soon after Dr.
Goddard. Those in London continued to
meet there as before (and we with them, when
we had occasion to be there), and those of us
at Oxford; with Dr. Ward (since Bishop of
Salisbury), Dr. Ralph Bathurst (now Presi
dent of Trinity College in Oxford), Dr. Petty
(since Sir William Petty), Dr. Willis (then
an eminent physician in Oxford), and divers
others, continued such meetings in Oxford
and brought those studies into fashion there ;
meetings first at Dr. Petty’s lodgings (in an
apothecarie’s house) because of the con
venience of inspecting drugs and the like, as
there was occasion; and after his remove to
Ireland (though not so constantly) at the
lodgings of Dr. Wilkins, then Warden of
Wadham College, and after his removal to
Trinity College in Cambridge, at the lodg
ings of the Honourable Mr. Robert Boyle,
then resident for divers years in Oxford........
In the meanwhile our company at Gresham
College being much again increased by the
accession of divers eminent and noble persons,
I Upon His Majesty’s return we were (about the
beginning of the year 1662) by His Majesty’s
I grace and favour incorporated by the name
of the Royal Society.”
4.—The Doctrine of Evolution.
What is sometimes called the scien
tific movement, but may be more
appropriately described as the Nature
searching movement, rapidly attained
an immense development. In the
latter half of the last century this
culminated in so complete a know
ledge of the movements of the heavenly
bodies, their chemical nature and phy
sical condition—so detailed a determi
nation of the history of the crust of this
earth and of the living things upon it,
of the chemical and physical processes
which go on in Man and other living
things, and of the structure of Man as
compared with the animals most like
him, and of the enormous length of
time during which Man has existed on
the earth—that it became possible to
establish a general doctrine of the
evolution of the kosmos, with more
special detail in regard to the history
�4
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
of this earth and the development of
Man from a lower animal ancestry.
Animals were, in their turn, shown to
have developed from simplest living
matter, and this from less highly
elaborated compounds of chemical
‘elements” differentiated at a still
earlier stage of evolution. There is,
it may be said without exaggeration,
no school or body of thinkers at the
present day who are acquainted with
the facts now ascertained which denies
the orderly evolution of the kosmos by
the* regular operation of a more or less
completely ascertained series of proper
ties resident in the material of which
it consists.1 The process of evolution
—the interaction of these ascertainable,
if not fully ascertained properties—has
led (it is held), in the case of the cool
ing cinder which we call the earth, by
an inevitable and predestined course,
to the formation of that which we call
living matter, and eventually of Man
himself. From this process all dis
orderly or arbitrary interferences must,
it seems, be excluded. The old fancies
as to presiding demons or fairies—
which, it was imagined, had for their
business to interrupt the supposed
feeble and limited efforts of Nature,
as yet unexplored and unappreciated
—have passed out of mind. The con
sensus is complete: Man is held to be
a part of Nature, a product of the
definite and orderly evolution which
is universal; a being resulting from
and driven by the one great nexus of
mechanism which we call Nature.
He stands alone, face to face with
that relentless mechanism. It is his
destiny to understand and to control it.
5.— Unwarranted Inferences from
the Evolution of Man.
There are not wanting those who,
accepting this conclusion, seek to
belittle Man and endeavour to repre
sent that the veil is lifted, that all is
explained,” obvious, commonplace,
and mean in regard to the significance
of life and of Man, because it has
become clear that the kosmic process
has brought them forth in due order.
There are others who rightly perceive
that life is no common property of our
cooling matter, but unique and excep
tional, and that Man stands apart from
and above all natural products, whether
animate or inanimate. Some of these
thinkers appear to accept the conclu
sion that if life and Man are regarded
as products of the kosmic process—
that is, of Nature—“ life ” and “ Man ”
lose so much in importance and signi
ficance that dire consequences must
follow to Man’s conception of his
dignity and to the essential features
of his systems of conduct and social
organisation. Accordingly, they cling
to the belief that living matter and
Man have not proceeded from an
orderly evolution of Nature, but are
“ super ’’-natural. It is found, on the
other hand, by many who have con
sidered these speculations, and hold no
less explicitly than do the super
naturalists ” that life is a momentou s
and peculiar feature of our earth s
surface, and Man the isolated and
unparalleled piece of work,
the
beauty of the world,” “the paragon
of animals”—it is found by many
such, I say, that nothing is gained in
regard to our conception of Man’s
1 See, however, the letter from the Times,
nobility and significance by supposing
reprinted on p. 34.
�NATUBE’S INSUBGENT SON
fchat he and the living matter which
has given rise to him are not the
outcome of that system of orderly
process which we call Nature.
There is one consideration in regard
to this matter which, it seems, is often
overlooked and should be emphasised.
It is sometimes—and perhaps with a
sufficient excuse in a want of acquaint
ance with Nature—held by those who
oppose the conclusion that Man has
been evolved by natural processes that
the products of Nature are arbitrary,
haphazard, and due to chance, and
that Man cannot be conceived of as
originating by chance. This notion of
“ chance ” is a misleading figment
inherited by the modern world from
days of blank ignorance. The “ Nature
searchers” of to-day admit no such
possibility as “ chance.” It will be in
the recollection of many of my readers
that a leading writer and investigator
of the Victorian Era—the physicist
John Tyndall—pointed out in a cele
brated address delivered at Belfast
that, according to the conceptions of
the mechanism of Nature arrived at
by modern science, • the structure of
that mechanism is such that it would
have been possible for a being of
adequate intelligence inspecting the
gaseous nebula from which our plane
tary system has evolved to have fore
seen in that luminous vapour the
Belfast audience and the professor
addressing it I
The fallacy that in given but un
known circumstances anything what
ever may occur in spite of the fact
that some one thing has been irrevo
cably arranged to occur is a common
one.1 It is correct to assume in the
5
absence of any pertinent knowledge
(if we are compelled to estimate the
probabilities) that one event is as
likely as another to occur; but never
theless there is no “ chance ” in the
matter since the event has been already
determined, and might be predicted by
those possessing the knowledge which
we lack. Thus, then, it appears that
the conclusion that man is a part of
nature is by no means equivalent to
asserting that he has originated by
“ blind chance it is, in fact, a specific
assertion that he is the predestined
outcome of an orderly—and to a large
extent “ perceptible ”—mechanism.2
6.—Nature’s Mode of Producing
Organic Forms.
The general process by which the
Variation, as affording the opportunity for the
operation of Natural Selection, to assume
that the variations presented by organisms
are minute variations in every direction around
a central point. Those observers who have
done useful work in showing the definite and
limited character of organic variations have
very generally assumed that they are opposing
a commonly held opinion that variation is of
this equally distributed character. I cannot
find that Mr. Darwin made any such assump
tion ; and it is certain, and must on reflection
have been recognised by all naturalists, that
the variations by the selection and intensifi
cation of which natural selection has produced
distinct forms or species, and in the course of
time altogether new groups of plants and
animals, are strictly limited to definite lines
rendered possible, and alone possible, by the
constitution of the living matter of the
parental organism. We have no reason to
suppose that the offspring of a beetle could in
the course of any number of generations
present variations on which selection could
operate so as to eventually produce a mam
malian vertebrate; or that, in fact, the
general result of the process of selection of
favourable variations in the past has not been
ab initio limited by the definite and restricted
possibilities characteristic of the living sub
stance of the parental organisms of each
divergent line or branch of the pedigree.
1 There is a tendency among writers on
2 See p. 34,
�6
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
higher and more elaborate forms of
life, and eventually man himself, have
been produced has been shown by
Darwin to depend upon two important
properties of living matter manifested
in connection with the multiplication
of individuals. Living matter has a
special property of adding to its bulk
by taking up the chemical elements
which it requires and building up the
food so taken as additional living
matter. It further has the power of
separating from itself minute particles
or germs which feed and grow inde
pendently, and thus multiply their
kind. It is a fundamental character
of this process of reproduction that
the detached or pullulated germ in
herits or carries with it from its parents
the peculiarities of form and structure
of its parent. This is the property
known as Heredity. It is most essen
tially modified by another property—
namely, that though eventually grow
ing to be closely like the parent, the
germ (especially when it is formed, as
is usual, by the fusion of two germs
from two separate parents) is never
identical in all respects with the parent.
It shows Variation. In virtue of
heredity the new congenital variations
shown by a new generation are trans
mitted to their offspring when in due
time they pullulate or produce germs.
Man has long been aware of this; and,
by selecting variations of beasts, birds,
or plants agreeable or useful to him,
has intensified such variations and
produced animals and plants in many
features very unlike those with which
he started.
It was Darwin’s merit to show that
a process of selection which he called
“ Natural Selection ” must take place
in the free untouched conditions under
which animals and plants exist, and
have existed for ages, on this globe.
Both animals and plants produce
germs, or young, in excess—usually in
vast excess. The world, the earth’s
surface, is practically full—that is to
say, fully occupied. Only one pair of
young can grow up to take the place
of the pair—male and female—which
have launched a dozen, or it may be
as many as a hundred thousand, young
individuals on the world.1 The pro
perty of variation ensures that amongst
this excess of young there are many
differences. Eventually those survive
which are most fitted to the special
conditions under which this particular
organism has to live. The conditions
may, and indeed in long lapses of time
must, change, and thus some variation
not previously favoured will gain the
day and survive. The “ struggle for
existence ” of Darwin is the struggle
amongst all the superabundant young
of a given species, in a given area, to
gain the necessary food, to escape
voracious enemies, and gain protection
from excesses of* heat, cold, moisture,
and dryness. One pair in the new
generation—only one pair—survive for
every parental pair. Animal popula
tion does not increase. “ Increase and
multiply ” has never been said by
Nature to her lower creatures. Locally,
and from time to time, owing to excep
tional changes, a species may multiply
here and decrease there; but it is im
portant to realise that the “ struggle
for existence ” in Nature—that is to
say, among the animals and plants of
this earth untouched by man—is a
1 A single pair of American oysters produce
on an average .twenty million fertilised eggs I
�NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
desperate OB©, however tranquil and
peaceful the battlefield may appear to
us. The struggle for existence takes
jjace, not as a clever French writer1
1 M, Paul Bourget, of the Academic Franeaise, is not only a charming writer of modern
“novels,” but claims to be a “psychologist,”
a title which perhaps may be conceded to
every author who writes of human character.
His works are so deservedly esteemed, and his
erudition is as a rule so unassailable, that in
selecting him as an example of the frequent
aaisrepresentation among literary men of
Darwin’s doctrine, I trust that my choice
may be regarded as a testimony of my admira
tion for his art. In his novel Un Divorce,
published in 1904, M. Bourget says: “La
lutte entre les especos, cette inflexible loi de
1’univers animal, a sa correspondence exacte
dans le monde des idees. Certaines men
tality constituent de vdritables especes* intellectuelles qui ne peuvent pas durer d cotd les
unes des autres” (Edition Pion, p. 317). This
inflexible law of the animal universe, the
Struggle between species, is one which is quite
unknown to zoologists. The “ struggle for
existence,” to which Darwin assigned im
portance, is not a struggle between different
species, but one between closely similar
members of the same species. The struggle
between species is by no means universal, but
in fact very rare. The preying of one species
on another is a moderated affair of balance
and adjustment which may be described rather
as an accommodation than as a struggle.
A more objectionable misinterpretation of
the naturalists’ doctrine of the survival of the
fittest in the struggle for existence is that
made by journalists and literary politicians,
who declare, according to their political bias,
either that science rightly teaches that the
gross quality measured by wealth and strength
alone can survive, and should therefore alone
be cultivated, or that science (and especially
Darwinism) has done serious injury to the
progress of mankind by authorising this
teaching. Both are wrong, and owe their
error to self-satisfied flippancy and traditional
ignorance in regard to Nature-knowledge and
the teaching of Darwin. The “ fittest ” does
not mean the “strongest.” The causes of
survival under Natural Selection are very far
indeed from being rightly described as mere
strength, nor are they baldly similar to the
power of accumulating wealth. Frequently
in Nature the more obscure and feeble survive
in the struggle because of their modesty and
L suitability to given conditions, whilst the rich
K are sent empty away and the mighty perish
by hunger.
1
glibly informs his readers, between
different species, but between indi
viduals of the same species, brothers
and sisters and cousins. The struggle
between a beast of prey which seeks
to nourish itself and the buffalo which
defends its life with its horns is not
“ the struggle for existence ” so named
by Darwin. Moreover, the struggle
among the members of a species in
natural conditions differs totally from
the mere struggle for advancement or
wealth with which uneducated writers
so frequently compare it. It differs
essentially in this—that in Nature s
struggle for existence, death, immediate
obliteration, is the fate of the van
quished, whilst the only reward to the
victors—few, very few, but rare and
beautiful in the fitness which has
carried them to victory—is the per
mission to reproduce their kind—to
carry on by heredity to another genera
tion the specific qualities by which
they triumphed.
It is not generally realised how
severe is the pressure and competition
in Nature, not between different species,
but between the immature members of
the population of one and the same
species, precisely because they are of
the same species and have exactly the
same needs. From a human point of
view, the pressure under which many
wild things live is awful in its severity
and relentless tenacity. Not only are
new forms established by natural
selection, but the old forms, when
they exactly fit the mould presented,
as it were, for competitive filling, are
maintained by the same unremitting
process. A distinctive quality in the
beauty of natural productions (in which
man delights) is due to the unobtrusive
�8
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
yet tremendous slaughter of the unfit
8.—The Emergence of Man.
which is incessantly going on and the
absolute restriction of the privilege of
As to how and when Man emerged
parentage to the happy few who attain from the terrestrial animal population
to the standard described as "the so strictly controlled and moulded by
fittest.”
natural selection is a matter upon
which we gain further information
7-. The Limited Variety of Nature’s year by year. There must be many
Products.
readers who remember, as I do, the
The process of development of an astounding and almost sudden dis
immense variety of animal and vege covery some forty-five years ago of
table forms has proceeded in this way abundant and overwhelming evidence
through countless ages of geologic that man had existed in Western
time, but it must not be supposed Europe as a contemporary of the
that any and every conceivable form mammoth and rhinoceros, the hyaena
and variety has been produced. There and the lion, which also existed there.
are only two great diverging lines of The dispute over the facts submitted
descent from original living matter- to the scientific world by Boucher de
only the animals and the plants. And Perthes was violent and of short
in each of these there are and have duration. The immense antiquity of
been only a limited number of branches Man was established and accepted on
to the pedigree, some coming off at a all sides just before Mr. Darwin pub
lower level, others at higher points lished his book on The Origin of Species.
when more elaborate structure has The palaeolithic implements of the river
been attained. It is easy to imagine gravels, though probably made much
groups of both plants and animals more than 150,000 years ago, do not,
with characters and structures which any more than do the imperfect skulls
have never existed and never will exist. occasionally found in association with
The limitation of the whole process, in them, indicate a condition of the
spite of its enormous duration in time, human race greatly more monkey-like
its gigantic output and variety, is a than is presented by existing savage
striking and important fact. Linnaeus races (see Pigs. 1 and 2 and Frontis
said : There are just as many species piece, and their explanations). The
as in the beginning the Infinite Being implements themselves are manufac
created”; and the modern naturalist tured with great skill and artistic
can go no further than the paraphrase feeling. Within the last ten years
of this, and must say : “ There are and much rougher flint implements, of
have been just so many and just so few peculiar types, have been discovered
varieties of animal and vegetable struc in gravels which are 500 feet above
ture on this earth as it was possible for the level of the existing rivers (see
the physical and chemical contents of Figs. 3 and 4).1 These Eoliths of the
the still molten globe to form up to the
1 [In 1909 large, skilfully worked flint
hour now reached.”
implements called “ rostro - carinate,” or
“eagles’ beaks,” were discovered in the bone-
�\T A'TTTT^Ti1’Si
T NTSi TTP. ft 7<! NT SION
9
�10
NATURE'S INSURGENT SON
Fig. 3.
Photographs of eight Eoliths of one and the same shape, namely, with a chipped or worked tooth
like prominence, rendering the flint fit for use as a "borer”—photographed half the actual size
(linear measurement) from specimens found near Ightham, Kent, in the high-level gravel—which
form part of the Prestwieh collection in the Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London. Many
others of the same shape have been found in the same locality. These and the trinacrial implements
photographed in Fig. 4 are far older than the oval and leaf-shaped Palaeoliths of the low-lying gravels
oi the valleys of the Thames, Somme, and other rivers. (Original.)
�NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
1]
Fig. 4.
Photographs of six Eoliths of the “shoulder of mutton” or "trinacrial” type—from the same locality
and collection as those shown in Fig. 3. The photographs are of half the length of the actual specimens.
A considerable number of worked flints of this peculiar shape have been found in the same locality.
Possibly their shape enabled the primitive men who “ chipped ” and used them to attach them by thongs
to a stick or club. The descriptive term “ trinacrial” is suggested by me for these flints in allusion to
the form of the island of Sicily, which they resemble. (Original.) [An important fact tending to prove
the human authorship of these “ trinacrial implements ” is the discovery by Dr. Blackmore of one in a
gravel near Salisbury, together with a large Quantity of hollow-faced “ scrapers.” The specimen is in
the Jfetural History Museum, Cromwell Road.]
�12
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
South of England indicate a race of
men of less developed skill than the
makers of the Palaaoliths, and carry
the antiquity of man at least as far
back beyond the Palaeoliths as these
are from the present day. We have
as yet found no remains giving the
direct basis for conclusions on the sub
ject ; but, judging by the analogy (not
by any means a conclusive method)
furnished by the history of other large
animals now living alongside of man—
such as the horse, the rhinoceros, the
tapir, the wolf, the hyaena, and the
bear—it is not improbable that it was
in the remote period known as the
lower Miocene—remote even as com
pared with the gravels in which
Eoliths occur—that Natural Selection
began to favour that increase in the
size of the brain of a large and not
very powerful semi-erect ape which
eventuated, after some hundreds of
thousands of years, in the breeding
out of a being with a relatively
enormous brain-case, a skilful hand,
and an inveterate tendency to throw
stones, flourish sticks, protect himself
in caves, and in general to defeat
aggression and satisfy his natural
appetites by the use of his wits rather
than by strength alone, in which, how
ever, he was not deficient. Probably
this creature had nearly the full size
of brain and every other physical
character of modern man, although
he had not as yet stumbled upon the
art of making fire by friction, nor
converted his conventional grunts and
groans, his screams, laughter, and
bed at the base of the Red Crag of Suffolk
by Mr. Reid Moir, of Ipswich, and establish
the existence of man in the Pliocene period.
See Lankester, Proc. Royal Society, Novem
ber, 1911.]
interjections, into a language corre
sponding to (and thenceforth develop
ing) his power of thought.
9.—The Enlarged Brain.
The leading feature in the develop
ment and separation of Man from
amongst other animals is undoubtedly
the relatively enormous size of the
brain in man, and the corresponding
increase in its activities and capacity.
It is a very striking fact that it was
not in the ancestors of man alone that
this increase in the size of the brain
took place at this same period—viz.,
the Miocene. The great mammals such
as the titanotherium, which represented
the rhinoceros in early Tertiary times,
had a brain which was, in proportion to
the bulk of the body, not more than oneeighth the volume of the brain of the
modern rhinoceros (see Fig. 5). Other
great mammals of the earlier Tertiary
period were in the same case; and the
ancestors of the horse, which are better
known than those of any other modern
animal, certainly had very much smaller
brains, in proportion to the size of their
bodies, than has their descendant.
We may well ask to what this
sudden and marked increase in the size
of the brain in several lines of the
animal pedigree is due. It seems that
the inborn hereditary nervous mechan
ism by which many simple and neces
sary movements of the body are con
trolled and brought into relation with
the outer world, acting upon the sense
organs, can be carried in a relatively
small bulk of brain-substance. Fish,
lizards, and crocodiles, with their small
brains, carry on a complex and effec
tive life of relation with their sur
roundings.
It appears that the
�NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
increased bulk of cerebral substance
rnp.g.ns increased educability
an
increased power of storing up individual experience—which tends to take
the place of the inherited mechanism,
with which it is often in antagonism.
The power of profiting by individual
experience—in fact, educability must,
in conditions of close competition, be,
When other conditions are equal, an
immense advantage to its possessor.
It seems that we have to imagine that
the adaptation of mammalian form to
the various conditions of life had, in
Miocene times, reached a point when
13
reward, the triumph, the survival,
would fall to those who possessed most
skill in the use of the instrument.
And in successive generations the bigger
and more educable brains would sur
vive and mate, and thus bigger and
bigger brains be produced.
It would not be difficult (though
not, perhaps, profitable) to imagine
the conditions which have favoured
the continuation of this process to a
far greater length in the Simian line
of the pedigree than in other mam
malian groups. The result is that the
creature called Man emerged with an
Fig. 5.
Four casts of the cavity of the skull lodging the brain of a series of large Ungulate Mammals in order to
show the relatively small size of the cerebral hemispheres of the extinct creature>fromi whichi A is taken.
A is that of Dinoceras, a huge extinct Eocene mammal which was as large as a Rhmoceios , B is that
of Hippopotamus? C of Horse ; and D of Rhinoceros. In each figure O points to the olfactory lobes of
the brain, C to the cerebrum, CL to the cerebellum, and M to the medulla oblongata.
further alteration and elaboration of
the various types which we know then
existed could lead to no advantage.
The variations presented for selection
in the struggle for existence presented
no advantage—the “ fittest” had prac
tically been reached, and was destined
to survive with little change. Assum
ing such a relative lull in the develop
ment of mere mechanical form, it is
obvious that the opportunity for those
individuals with the most “ educable ”
brains to defeat their competitors
Would arise. No marked improvement
in the instrument being possible, the
educable brain of some five or six times
the bulk (in proportion to his size and
weight) of that of any other surviving
Simian. Great as is this difference, it
is one of the most curious facts in the
history of man’s development that the
bulk of his brain does not appear to
have continued to increase in any very
marked degree since early Palaeolithic
times. The cranial capacity of many
savage races and of some of the
most ancient human skulls is not
less than that of the average man of
highly-civilised race. The value of
the mental activities in which primitive
�14
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
man differs from the highest apes
may be measured in some degree by
the difference in the size of the man’s
and the ape’s brain ; but the difference
in the size of the brain of Isaac Newton
and an Australian black-fellow is not
in the remotest degree proportionate
to the difference in their mental quali
ties. Man, it would seem, at a very
remote period, attained the extra
ordinary development of brain which
marked him off from the rest of the
animal world, but has ever since been
developing the powers and qualities of
this organ without increasing its size,
or materially altering in other bodily
features.1
10.—The Progress of Man.
The origin of Man by the process
of Natural Selection is one chapter
in Man’s history; another one begins
with the consideration of his further
development and his diffusion over the
surface of the globe.
The mental qualities which have
developed in Man, though traceable in
a vague and rudimentary condition in
some of his animal associates, are of
such an unprecedented power, and so
far dominate everything else in his
activities as a living organism, that
they have to a very large extent, if not
1 A short discussion of this subject and the
introduction of the term “educability” was
published in a paper by me, entitled “The
Significance of the Increased Size of the
Cerebrum in Recent as Compared with Extinct
Mammalia,” Cinquantenaire de la Societi de
Biologie, Paris, 1899, pp. 48-51.
It has been pointed out to me by my friend
Dr. Andrews, of the Geological Department
of the British Museum, that the brain cavity
of the elephants was already of relatively
large size in the Eocene members of that
group, which may be connected with the per
sistence of these animals through subsequent
geological periods.
entirely, cut him off from the general
operation of that process of Natural
Selection and survival of the fittest
which, up to their appearance, had
been the law of the living world. They
justify the view that Man forms a new
departure in the gradual unfolding of
Nature’s predestined scheme. Know
ledge, reason, self-consciousness, will,
are the attributes of Man. It is not
my purpose to attempt to trace their
development from lower phases of
mental activity in Man’s animal ances
tors, nor even to suggest the steps by
which that development has proceeded.
What we call the will or volition of
Man—a discussion of the nature and
limitation of which would be impos
sible in these pages, and is happily
not necessary for my present purpose
—has become a power in Nature, an
imperium in imperio, which has pro
foundly modified not only Man’s own
history, but that of the whole living
world and the face of the planet on
which he exists. Nature’s inexorable
discipline of death to those who do
not rise to her standard—survival and
parentage for those alone who do—has
been from the earliest times more and
more definitely resisted by the will of
Man. If we may, for the purpose of
analysis, as it were, extract Man from
the rest of Nature, of which he is truly
a product and part, then we may say
that Man is Nature’s rebel. Where
Nature says “Die!” Man says “I
will live.” According to the law pre
viously in universal operation, Man
should have been limited in geo
graphical area, killed by extremes of
cold or of heat, subject to starvation if
one kind of diet were unobtainable,
and should have been unable to
�NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
15
increase and multiply, just as are his on failure. The stronger, the more
animal relatives, without losing his cunning, the better armed, the more
specific structure and acquiring new courageous tribe or family group, ex
physical characters according to the terminated by actual slaughter or
requirements of the new conditions starvation the neighbouring tribes less
into which he strayed—should have gifted in one or all of these qualities.
perished except on the condition of be But from what we know of the history
coming a new morphological species.” of warlike exterminating savage tribes
ButMan’swits and his will have enabled at the present day—as, for instance,
him to cross rivers and oceans by rafts the Masai of East Africa—it seems
and boats, to clothe himself against unlikely that the method of exter
cold, to shelter himself from heat and mination—that is, of true natural
rain, to prepare an endless variety of selection—had much effect in man s
food by fire, and to “ increase and development after the very earliest
multiply ” as no other animal, without period. Union and absorption were
change of form, without submitting to more usual results of the contact of
the terrible axe of selection wielded by primitive tribes than struggles to the
ruthless Nature over all other living death. The expulsion of one group
things on this globe. And as he has by another from a desired territory
more and more obtained this control was more usual than the destruction
over his surroundings, he has expanded of the conquered. In spite of the
that unconscious protective attitude frequent assertions to the contrary, it
towards his immature offspring which seems that neither the more ancient
N atural Selection had already favoured wars of mankind for conquest and
and established in the animal race migration, nor the present and future
into a conscious and larger love for wars for commercial privilege, have
his tribe, his race, his nationality, and any real equivalence to the simple
his kind. He has developed speech, removal by death of the unfit and the
the power of communicating, and, survival and reproduction of the fit,
above all, of recording and handing which we know as Natural Selection.
on from generation to generation his
1 It would be an error to maintain that the
thought and knowledge.
He has process of Natural Selection is entirely in
regard Man. In
formed communities, built cities, and abeyance in PresenttoEvolution an interesting
book, The
of Man, Dr.
set up empires. At every step of his Archdall Reid has shown that in regard to
progress Man has receded further and zymotic diseases, and also in regard to the
use of dangerous drugs such as alcohol and
further from the ancient rule exercised opium, there is first of all the acquirement of
by Nature. He has advanced so far, immunity by powerful races of men through
among them of those strains
and become so unfitted to the earlier the survivalthe disease or of the drug, and,
tolerant of
rule, that to suppose that Man can secondly, the introduction of those diseases
drugs by
powerful immune race, in
“return to Nature” is as unreason andmigrations, theraces not previously exposed
its
to
able as to suppose that an adult animal either to the diseases or the drugs, and a con
sequent destruction of the invaded race. The
can return to its mother’s womb.
survival of the fittest is, in these cases, a
In early tribal times Natural Selec survival of the tolerant, and eventually of the
tion still imposed the death penalty immune.
�16
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
The standard raised by the rebel
man is not that of “ fitness ” to the
conditions proffered by extra-human
nature, but is one of an ideal comfort,
prosperity, and conscious joy in life—
imposed by the will of man, and in
volving a control, and in important
respects a subversion, of what were
Nature’s methods of dealing with life
before she had produced her insurgent
son. The progress of man in the
acquirement of this control of Nature
has been one of enormous rapidity
within the historical period, and within
the last two centuries has led, on the
one hand, to immensely increased
facilities in the application of mechan
ical power, in locomotion, in agricul
ture, and in endless arts and indus
tries ; and, on the other hand, to the
mitigation of disease and pain. The
men whom we may designate as “ the
Nature- searchers ”—those who founded
the New Philosophy of the so-called
“ Invisible College ” at Oxford and the
Royal Society in London—have placed
boundless power in the hands of man
kind.
11.—-The Attainment by Man of the
Knowledge of his Relations to Nature.
But to many the greatest result
achieved by the progress of Natural
Knowledge seems not to have been so
much in its practical applications and
its material gifts to humanity as in
the fact that Man has arrived through
it at spiritual emancipation and free
dom of thought.
In the latter part of the last century
Man’s place in Nature became clearly
marked out by the accumulation of
definite evidence. The significance
and the immeasurable importance of
the knowledge of Nature to philosophy
and the highest regions of speculative
thought are expressed in the lines of
one who most truly and with keenest
insight embodied in his imperishable
verse the wisdom and the aspirations
of the Victorian age:—
Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies ;
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower ; but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.
To many the nearer approach to
that “ understanding ” has seemed the
greatest and a sufficient result of
scientific researches. The recognition
that such an understanding leads to
such vast knowledge would seem to
ensure further and combined effort to
bring it nearer and nearer to the
complete form, even if the perfect
understanding of the “ all in all ” be
for ever unattainable. Nevertheless,
the clearer apprehension, so recently
attained, of Man’s origin and destiny,
and of the enormous powers of which
he has actually the control, has not
led to any very obvious change in the
attitude of responsible leaders of human
activity in the great civilised communi
ties of the world. They still attach
little or no importance to the acquire
ment of a knowledge of Nature; they
remain fixed in the old ruts of tradi
tional ignorance, and obstinately turn
their faces towards the past, still
believing that the teachings and say
ings of antiquity and the contempla
tion—not to say the detailed enumera
tion—of the blunders and crimes of its
ancestors can furnish mankind with
the knowledge necessary for its future
progress. The comparative failure of
what may be called the speculative
�NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
triumph of the New Philosophy to
produce immediate practical conse
quences has even led some among
those prejudiced by custom and educa
tion in favour of the exclusive employ
ment of man’s thought and ingenuity
in the delineation and imaginative
resurrection of the youthful follies and
excesses of his race, to declare that
the knowledge of Nature is a failure,
the New Philosophy of the Nature
searchers a fraud. Thus the wellknown French publicist M. Brunetidre
has taken upon himself to declare what
he calls the Bankruptcy of Science.
37
13.—Man's Destiny.
Within the last few years an attempt
to spur the will of Englishmen in this
direction has been made by some who
have represented that this way lie
great fortunes, national ascendancy,
imperial domination. The effort has
not met with much success. On the
other hand, I speak for those who
would urge the conscious and deli
berate assumption of his kingdom by
Man, not as a matter of markets and
of increased opportunity for the cos
mopolitan dealers in finance, but as
an absolute duty, the fulfilment of
Man’s destiny,1 a necessity the inci
dence of which can only be deferred
and not avoided.
This is, indeed, the definite purpose
of my discourse: to point out that
civilised man has proceeded so far in
his interference with extra-human
Nature, has produced for himself and
the living organisms associated with
bim such a special state of things by
his rebellion against Natural Selection
and his defiance of Nature’s pre-human
dispositions, that he must either go on
and acquire firmer control of the con
ditions or perish miserably by the
vengeance certain to fall on the half
hearted meddler in great affairs. We
may, indeed, compare civilised man to
a successful rebel against Nature, who
by every step forward renders himself
liable to greater and greater penalties,
and so cannot afford to pause or fail
in one single step. Or, again, we may
think of him as the heir to a vast and
12.—The Regnum Hominis.
As a matter of fact, the new know
ledge of Nature—the newly-ascertained
capacity of Man for a control of Nature
so thorough as to be almost unlimited
—has not as yet had an opportunity
for showing what it can do. A lull
after victory, a lethargic contentment,
has to some extent followed on the
crowning triumphs of the great
Nature-searchers whose days were
numbered with the closing years of
that nineteenth century which through
them marks an epoch. No power
has called on Man to arise and enter
upon the possession of his kingdom—
the Regnum Hominis foreseen by
Francis Bacon and pictured by him
to an admiring but incredulous age
with all the fervour and picturesque
detail of which he was capable. And
yet at this moment the mechanical
difficulties, the want of assurance and
of exact knowledge, which necessarily
prevented Bacon’s schemes from taking
1 “ Religion means the knowledge of our
practical shape, have been removed.
destiny and of the means of fulfilling it.” The will to possess and administer Life and Letters of Mandell Creighton, some
time Bishop of London, Vol. II., p. 195.
this vast territory alone is wanting.
�18
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
magnificent kingdom who has been
finally educated so as to fit him to
take possession of his property, and is
at length left alone to do his best; he
has wilfully abrogated in many impor
tant respects the laws of his mother
Nature, by which the kingdom was
hitherto governed; be has gained some
power and advantage by so doing, but
is threatened on every hand by dangers
and disasters hitherto restrained. No
retreat is possible; his only hope is to
control, as he knows that he can, the
sources of these dangers and disasters.
They already make him wince. How
long-will he sit listening to the fairy
tales of his boyhood and shrink from
manhood’s task ?
A brief consideration of well-ascer
tained facts is sufficient to show that
Man, whilst emancipating himself from
the destructive methods of Natural
Selection, has accumulated a new
series of dangers and difficulties with
which he must incessantly contend.
14.—Man and Disease.
In the extra-human system of
Nature there is no disease and there
is no conjunction of incompatible
forms of life, such as Man has brought
about on the surface of the globe. In
extra-human Nature the selection of
the fittest necessarily eliminates those
diseased or liable to disease. Disease
both of parasitic and congenital origin
occurs as a minor phenomenon. The
congenitally diseased are destroyed
before they can reproduce; the attacks
of parasites great and small either
serve only to carry off the congenitally
weak, and thus strengthen the race, or
become harmless by the survival of
those individuals which, owing to
peculiar qualities in their tissues, can
tolerate such attacks without injury,
resulting in the establishment of
immune races. It is a remarkable
thing—which possibly may be less
generally true than our present know
ledge seems to suggest—that the
adjustment of organisms to their
surroundings is so severely complete
in Nature apart from Man that dis
eases are unknown as constant and
normal phenomena under those condi
tions. It is no doubt difficult to
investigate this matter, since the
presence of Man as an observer itself
implies human intervention. But it
seems to be a legitimate view that
every disease to which animals (and
probably plants also) are liable,
excepting as a transient and very
exceptional occurrence, is due to
Man’s interference. The diseases of
cattle, sheep, pigs, and horses are not
known except in domesticated herds
and those wild creatures to which
Man’s domesticated productions have
communicated them. The trypano
some lives in the blood of wild game
and of rats without producing mis
chief. The hosts have become tolerant
of the parasite. It is only when Man
brings his unselected, humanly nur
tured races of cattle and horses into
contact with the parasite that it is
found to have deadly properties.1 The
1 This has been established in the case of
the Trypanosoma Brucei, a minute parasite
living in the blood of big game in South-East
Africa, amongst which it is disseminated by
a bloodsucking fly, the Glossina morsitans
or Tsetze fly. The parasite appears to do
little or no harm to the native big game, but
causes a deadly disease both in tbe horses and
cattle introduced by Europeans and in the
more anciently introduced native cattle (of
Indian origin). Similar cases are found where
�NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
19
various cattle-diseases which in Africa
have done so much harm to native
cattle, and have in some regions
exterminated big game, have per contra
been introduced by Man through his
importation of diseased animals of his
own breeding from Europe. Most, if
not all, animals in extra-human condi
tions, including the minuter things such
as insects, shell-fish, and invisible
aquatic organisms, have been brought
into a condition of “ adjustment ” to
their parasites as well as to the other
conditions in which they live; it is
this most delicate and efficient balance
of Nature which Man everywhere
upsets. A solitary case of a ravaging
epidemic constantly recurring amongst
animals living in extra-human condi
tions, one of a strangely interesting
character,is the phosphorescent disease
of the sand-shrimps or sand-hoppers.
This is due to a microscopic parasite, a
bacterium, which infests the blood, and
is phosphorescent, so that the infected
sand-hopper has at night the br'Uiancy
of a glow-worm. The disease is deadly,
and is common among the sand-hoppers
dwelling in the sandy flats of the north
coast of France, where it may readily
be studied.1 It has not been recorded
as occurring in this country. It is not
at all improbable that this disease is
also in truth one which only occurs in
the trail of Man. It is quite likely
that the artificial conditions of sewage
and garbage set up by man on the sea
coast are responsible for the prevalence
of this parasite and the weakly recep
tivity of the too numerous sand
hoppers.
It is probable enough that, from
time to time, under the influence of
certain changes of climate and asso
ciated fauna and flora—due to meteoric
or geologic movements — parasitic
a disease germ (such as that of measles) pro
duces but a small degree of sickness and
mortality in a pppulation long associated with
it, but is deadly to a human community to
which it is a new-comer. Thus, Europeans
have introduced measles with deadly results
in the South Sea Islands. A similar kind of
difficulty, of whioh many might be cited, is
brought about by Man’s importations and
exportations of useful plants. He thus
brought the Phylloxera to Europe, not
realising beforehand that this little parasitic
bug, though harmless to the American vine,
which puts out new shoots on its roots when
the insect injures the old ones, is absolutely
deadly to the European vine, which has not
acquired the simple but all-important mode
of growth by which the American vine is
rendered safe. Thus, too, he took the cofieeplant to Ceylon, and found his plantations
suddenly devastated by a minute mould, the
Hemileia vastatrix, which had lived very
innocently before that in the Cingalese
forests, but was ready to burst into rapacious
and destructive activity when the new un
adjusted coflee-trees were imported by man
tod presented in carefully crowded planta
tions to its unrestrained infeotion.
1 The phosphorescent disease of the sand
hopper (Talitrus) is described by Giard and
Billet in a paper entitled “ Observations sur la
maladie phosphorescente des Talitres et autres
Crustaces,” in the Memoirs of the Society de
Biologie, Oct. 19, 1889. Billet subsequently
gave a further account of this organism, and
named it Bacillus Qiardi—after Professor
Giard of Paris. (Bulletins sdentifiques de la
France et de la Belgique, xxi, 1898, p. 144.)
It appears that the parasite is transmitted
from one individual to another in coition.
The specimens studied by Giard and Billet
were obtained at Wimereux, near Boulogne.
I found the disease very abundant at Ouistreham, near Caen, in the summer of 1900. I
have not observed it nor heard of its occur
rence on the English coast. Sea-water nommonly contains a free-living phosphorescent
bacterium which can be cultivated in flasks
of liquid food, and gives rich growths
which glow like a lamp when the flask is
agitated so as to expose the contents to
oxidation. This bacterium is not, however,
the cause of the “ phosphorescence ” of the
sea often seen on our coasts. That is due, in
most cases, to a much larger organism, as big
as a small pin’s head, and known as Noctiluca
miliaris,
�20
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
disease has for a time ravaged this or
that species newly exposed to it; but
the final result is one of the alterna
tives, extinction or adjustment, death
or toleration. The disease does not
establish itself as a scourge against
which the diseased organism inces
santly contends. It either obliterates
its victim or settles down with it into
relations of reciprocal toleration.
Man does not admit this alternative
either for himself or for the domesti
cated and cultivated organisms which
he protects. He “ treats ” disease, he
staves off “ the adjustment by death,”
and thus accumulates vast populations
of unadjusted human beings, animals,
and plants, which from time to time
are ravaged by disease—producing
uncertainty and dismay in human
society. Within the past few years
the knowledge of the causes of disease
has become so far advanced that it is
a matter of practical certainty that, by
the unstinted application of known
methods of investigation and conse
quent controlling action, all epidemic
disease could be abolished within a
period so short as fifty years. It is
merely a question of the employment
of the means at our command. Where
there is one man of first-rate intelli
gence employed in detecting the disease
producing parasites, their special con
ditions of life and the way to bring
them to an end, there should be a
thousand. It should be as much the
purpose of civilised governments to
protect their citizens in this respect
as it is to provide defence against
human aggression. Yet it is the fact
that this immensely important control
of a great and constant danger and
injury to mankind is left to the unor
ganised inquiries of a few enthusiasts.
So little is this matter understood or
appreciated that those who are respon
sible for the welfare of States, with
the rarest exceptions, do not even
know that such protection is possible,
and others again are so far from an
intelligent view as to its importance
that they actually entertain the opinion
that it would be a good thing were
there more disease in order to get rid
of the weakly surplus population I
In the spring of 1905 I was enabled
to examine in the Pasteur Institute in
Paris the minute spiral thread (see
Fig. 6) which had just been discovered
and shown to be the cause of the
most terrible and widely spread of
human diseases, destroying the health
and strength of those whom it does
not kill and damaging the lives of their
children, so that it has been justly
said that this malady and the use of
alcohol as a beverage are together
responsible for more than half the
disease and early death of the mature
population of Europe. For more than
thirty years a few workers here and
there have been searching for this
parasite, and the means of suppressing
the awful curse of which it is the
instrument. It would have been dis
covered many years ago had greater
value been set on the inquiries which
lead to such discoveries by those who
direct the public expenditure of civilised
States. And now the complete sup
pression of this dire enemy of humanity
is as plain and certain a piece of work
to be at once accomplished as is the
building of an ironclad. But it will
not be done for many years because of
the ignorance and unbelief of those
who alone can act for the community
�NATURE'S INSURGENT SON
in such matters. The discovery—the
presentation to the eye and to explor
ing manipulation—of that well-nigh
ultra-microscopic germ of death seemed
to me, as I gazed at its delicate shape,
a thing of greater significance to man
kind than the emendation of a Greek
text or the determination of the exact
degree of turpitude of a statesman of
a bygone age.
The knowledge of the causation of
disease by bacterial and protozoic
21
obtained has led to a control of the
attack or of the poisonous action of
the parasite. Antiseptic surgery, by
defeating the poisonous parasite, has
saved not only thousands upon thou
sands of lives, but has removed an
incalculable amount of pain. Control
is slowly being obtained in regard to
several others among these deadly
microbes in various ways, most wonder
ful of which is the development, under
Man’s control, of serums containing
Fig. 6.
The minute vibratile organism discovered by Fritz Schaudinn in 1905 in the eruptive formations and
other diseased growths of syphilis—and called by him Spirochaeta pallida (since altered to Spironema
pallidum): a common phase; b shortened and thickened form leading on to e the Trypanosoma-like
form; c, d stages of division by fission; / elongated multi-nuclear form;
segments into which it
breaks up ; h supposed conjugation of male and female units (after Krystallovitch and Siedlevski).
This organism, though resembling the spirillar forms of bacteria, is probably not one of that group
of vegetable parasites, but allied to the minute animal parasites known as Trypanosomes (see pp. 87
and 10S and figures). It is regarded as the “germ” or active cause of the terrible disease known as
syphilis.
parasites is a thing which has come
into existence, under our very eyes
and hands, within the last fifty years.
The parasite, and much of its nature
and history, has been discovered in the
case of splenic fever, leprosy, phthisis,
diphtheria, typhoid fever, glanders,
cholera, plague, lockjaw, gangrene,
septic poisoning (of wounds), puerperal
fever, malaria, sleeping sickness, and
some other diseases which are fatal to
man. In some cases the knowledge
anti-toxins appropriate to each disease,
which have to be injected into the
blood as the means of either cure or
protection. But why should we be
content to wait long years, even
centuries, for this control, when we
can have it in a few years ? If more
men and abler men were employed to
study and experiment on this matter,
we should soon make an end of all
infectious disease. Is there anyone,
man or woman, who would not wish
�22
HATUBE’S INSUBEENT SON_________________ .
to contribute to the removal from
human life of the suffering and un
certainty due to disease, the anguish
and misery caused by premature
death ? Yet nothing is done by those
who determine the expenditure of the
revenues of great States towards deal
ing adequately with this matter.
1 As little is the question of the use and
abuse of food and drink dealt with, as yet, by
civilised Man. As in many other matters
Man has carried into his later crowded,
artificial, Nature-controlling life habits and
tendencies derived from savage prehistoric
days, so has he perpetuated ways of feeding
which are mere traditions from his early
“ animal ” days, and have never been seriously
called in question and put to proof, The
persistence under new conditions of either
habit or structure which belonged to old con
ditions may be attended with great danger
and difficulty to an organism which changes,
as Man does, with great rapidity important
features in its general surroundings and mode
of life. This is in efiect MetschnikoS’s doc
trine of “ disharmonies.” It is probable that
in very early days, when a tribe of primitive
men killed a mammoth, they all rushed on
to the dead monster and gorged as much of
its flesh as they could swallow (cooked or
possibly uncooked). They had to take in
enough to last for another week or two—that
is to say, until another large animal should
be trapped and slain. Accordingly he who
could eat most would be strongest and best
able to seize a good share when the next
opportunity arrived, and it naturally became
considered an indication of strength, vigour,
and future prosperity to be capable of gorging
large quantities of food. By means of the
phrases “ enjoying a good appetite,” or a
good trencherman,” or other such approving
terms, civilised society still encourages the
heavy feeder. The poorer classes always con
sider a ravenous appetite to be an indication
of strength and future prosperity in a child.
Most healthy men, and even many women, m
Western Europe attack their food and swallow
it without sufficient mastication, and as
though they did not hope to get another
chance of feeding for a week or two to come.
Medical men have never ventured to inves
tigate seriously whether civilised man is
doing best for his health in behaving like a
• savage about his food. It is their business to
attend to the patient with a disordered diges
tion, but not to experiment upon the amount
of food of various kinds which the modern
man should swallow in order to avoid indiges-
15,—The Increase of Human
Population.
Whilst there is a certainty of Man’s
power to remove all disease from his
life, a difficulty which he has already
created for himself will be thereby in
creased. That difficulty is the increase
of human population beyond the
capacity of the earth’s surface to
provide food and the other necessities
of life. By rebelling against Nature’s
method Man has made himself the
tion and yet supply his alimentary needs.
No individual can possibly pay medical men
to make these observations. It is the business
of the State to do so, because such knowledge
is not only needed by the private citizen, but
is of enormous importance in the manage
ment of armies and navies, in the victualling
of hospitals, asylums, and prisons, lhousands of tons of preserved meat have been
wasted in recent wars because the reckless
and ignorant persons who purchased the pre
served meat to feed soldiers had never taken
the trouble to ascertain whether preserved
meat can be eaten by a body of men as a
regular and chief article of diet. It appears
that certain methods of preserving meat
render it innutritious and impossible as a
It is probable from recent experiment that
we all, except those unfortunate few who do
not get enough, eat about twice as much as
we require, and that the superfluous quantity
swallowed not only is wasted, but is actually
a cause of serious illness and suffering. 1
surely is an urgent matter that these questions
about food should be thoroughly investigated
and settled. In the opinion of the most
eminent physiologist of the United States
(Professor Bowditch), we shall never establish
a rational and healthy mode of feeding our
selves until we give up the barbarous but to
some persons pleasant custom of converting
the meal into a social function ; we are thus
tempted into excess. Only long and„extensive
experiment can provide us with definite an
conclusive information on this matter, whic
is far more important than at firs sg
seems to be. And similarly with rega^d ?2
the admittedly serious question of alcohol
only very extensive and authoritative exper
ment will suffice to show mankind whether 1
is a wise and healthy thing to take it in small
quantities, the exact limits of which must be
stated, or to reject it altogether.
.lUfi-
�NATURE'S INSURGENT SON
only animal which constantly increases
in numbers. Whenever disease is con
trolled his increase will be still more
rapid than at present. At the same
time, no attempt at present has been
made by the more advanced com
munities of civilised men to prevent
the multiplication of the weakly or
of those liable to congenital disease.
Already something like a panic on this
subject has appeared in this country.
Inquiries have been conducted by
public authorities. But the only pos
sible method of dealing with this
matter, and in the first place of
estimating its importance as imme
diate or remote, has not been applied.
Man can only deal with this difficulty,
created by his own departure from
Nature—to wrhich he can never return
—by thoroughly investigating the laws
of breeding and heredity, and pro
ceeding to apply a control to human
multiplication based upon certain and
indisputable knowledge.
It may be a century, or it may be
more than five centuries, before the
matter would, if let alone, force itself
upon a desperate humanity, brutalised
by overcrowding and the struggle for
food. A return to Nature’s terrible
selection of the fittest may, it is con
ceivable, be in this way in store for
us. But it is more probable that
humanity will submit, before that con
dition occurs, to a restriction by the
community in respect of the right to
multiply with as good a grace as it
has given up the right to murder and
to steal. In view of this, Man must,
in entering on his kingdom, at once
proceed to perfect those studies as
to the transmission of qualities by
heredity which have as yet been only
23
roughly carried out by breeders of
animals and horticulturists.
There is absolutely no provision for
this study in any civilised community,
and no conception among the people
or their leaders that it is a matter
which concerns anyone but farmers.1
16.—An Untouched Source of Energy.
The applications of steam and elec
tricity have so far astonished and
gratified the rebel Man that he is
sometimes disposed to conclude that
he has come to the end of his power
of relieving himself from the use of his
own muscles for anything but refined
movements and well-considered health
giving exercises. One of the greatest
of chemical discoverers, M. Berthelot
(who died in 1909), has, however,
recently pressed on our attention the
question of the possibility of tapping
the central heat of the earth, and
making use of it as a perennial source
of energy. Many competent physicists
have expressed the opinion that the
mechanical difficulties of such a boring
as would be necessary are insuperable.
No one, however, would venture to
prophesy, in such a matter as this,
that what is prevented by insuperable
obstacles to-day may not be within
our powers in the course of a few
years.
17 .—Spectilations as to the Martians.
Such audacious control of the re
sources of our planet is suggested as
a possibility, a legitimate hope and
1 [A few private organisations with this
object in view have come into existence
within the last five years, but their resources
are altogether inadequate. Results of value
cannot be obtained without the expenditure
of much money.]
�24
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
aim, by recent observations and specu
lations as to our neighbour, the planet
Mars. I do not venture to express
any opinion as to the interpretation of
the appearances revealed by the tele
scope on the surface of the planet
Mars, and, indeed, would take the
most sceptical attitude until further
information is obtained. But the in
fluence of these statements about Mars
on the imagination and hopes of Man
cally filled with water* which is derived
from the polar snow-caps of the planet
at the season of greatest polar heat.
It is suggested that Mars is inhabited
by an intelligent population, not neces
sarily closely similar to mankind, but,
on the contrary, unlike mankind in
proportion as the conditions of Mars
are unlike those of the Earth, and
that these inhabitants have con
structed, by their own efforts, the
enormous irrigation works
upon which the fertility and
habitability of their planet,
at the present time, depend.
These speculations lead M.
Faguet, of the French Aca
demy, to further reflections.
Not only must the Martians,
who have carried out this
vast manipulation of a
planet, be far in advance
of the inhabitants of the
Earth in intelligence and
mechanical power, as a re
sult of the greater age of
their planet and the longer
continuance there of the
evolution of an intelligent
Fig. 7.
race, but such a vast work
.Drawing of Mars in November with Long. 156° on the meri
dian, showing the “Mare Sirenum” (the shaded sickle-shaped
and its maintenance would
area), connected with a network of “canals” showing “spots”
or oases ” at the intersections of the canals and a system of
seem to imply a complete
spherical triangles as the form of the meshwork.—From
Mars,” by Perceval Lowell.
unanimity among the popu
lation—a world-wide peace
seems to me to possess considerable and common government. Since we
interest. The markings on the surface can imagine such a result of the
of the planet Mars, which have been prolonged play of forces in Mars
interpreted as a system of canals, have similar to those at work in our own
been known and discussed for many Earth, and even obtain some slight
years (see Bigs. 7 and 8). It has confirmation of the supposition, may
recently been observed that these we not indulge in the surmise
canals undergo a recurrent seasonal that some such future is in store
change of appearance consistent with for Man; that he may be able here
the hypothesis that they are periodi after to ' deal with great planetary
�NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
25
nings and its limitations, than it is
for him to know the minutest details
of the workings of Nature. Just as
much in the one case as in the other,
it is impossible for him to trust to the
imperfect analysis made by ancient
races of men, and the traditions and
fancies handed down in old writings—
produced by generations who had not
18.—The Investigation of the Human arrived at the method of investigation
Mind.
which we now can apply. Experiment
In such a desultory survey
as that on which I have ven
tured of Man’s kingdom and
its dangers, it occurs to me to
mention another area upon
which it seems urgent that the
activities of Nature-searchers
should be immediately turned
with increased power and num
ber. The experimental study
of his body and of that of ani
mals has been carried far, and
with valuable results, by in
quiring Man. But a singu
larly small amount of atten
tion has as yet been given to
the investigation of Man’s
mind as a natural phenome
Fig. 8.
non, and one which can be
Drawing
seen
better understood to the im 325° on the of Mars asby Mr. on November 18,1894 (Long.
meridian)
Perceval Lowell at the Flag
staff Observatory, Arizona, U.S.A., showing ‘ twin” or
mense advantage of the race.
“ double ” canals, connected northwards with the “ Mare
The mind of Man—it mat Icarium.” The two figures here reproduced give only a
small portion of the system of canals, oases, and seas of
ters not, for my immediate the planet Mars mapped by Mr. Lowell.
argument, whether it be re
garded as having arisen normally or upon the mental processes of animals
abnormally from the mind of animals and of Man is greatly needed. Only
—is obviously the one and all-powerful here and there has anything been done
instrument with which he has con in this direction. Most promising
tended, and is destined hereafter to results have been obtained by such
contend, against extra-human Nature. observations as those on hypnotism
It is no less important for him to know and on various diseased and abnormal
the quality, the capacity, the mode of states of the brain. But the subject
operation of this instrument, its begin is so little explored that wild and
factors to his own advantage, and not
only draw heat from the bowels of the
earth for such purposes as are at
present within his scope, but even so
as to regulate, at some distant day,
ths climates of the earth’s surface, and
the winds and the rain which seem
now for ever beyond his control ?
�26
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
untested assertions as to the powers of
the mind are current, and have given
rise to strange beliefs, accepted by
many seriously intentioned men and
women. We boldly operate upon the
minds of children in our systems of
education without really knowing what
we are doing. We blindly assume that
the owners of certain minds, tradi
tionally trained in amusing elegancies,
are fit to govern their fellow-men and
administer vast provinces ; we assume
that the discovery and comprehension
of Nature’s processes must be the
work of very few and peculiar minds ;
that if we take care of the body the
mind will take care of itself. We
know really nothing of the heredity of
mental qualities, nor how to estimate
their presence or absence in the young
so as to develop the mind to greatest
advantage. We know the pain and
the penalty of muscular fatigue, but
we play with the brains of young and
old as though they were indestructible
machinery. What is called experi
mental psychology is only in its in
fancy ; but it is of urgent necessity
that it should be systematically pur
sued by the application of public funds,
in order that Man may know how to
make the best use of his only weapon
in his struggle to control Nature.
19.—Man’s Delay: Its Cause and
Remedy.
Even the slight and rapid review
just given of Man’s position, face to
face with Nature, enables us to see
what a tremendous step he has taken,
what desperate conditions he has
created, by the wonderful exercise of
his will; how much he has done and
can do to control the order of Nature,
and how urgent it is, beyond all that
words can say, for him to apply his
whole strength and capacity to gaining
further control, so that he may accom
plish his destiny and escape from
misery.
It is obvious enough that Man is at
present doing very little in this direc
tion ; so little that one seeks for an
explanation of his apathy, his seeming
paralysis.
The explanation is that the masses
of the people, in civilised as well as
uncivilised countries, are not yet aware
of the situation. When knowledge on
this matter reaches, as it inevitably
will in time, to the general population,
it is certain that the democracy will
demand that those who expend the
resources of the community, and as
Government officials undertake the
organisation of the national defence
and other great public services for the
common good, shall put into practice
the power of Nature-control which
has been gained by mankind, and
shall exert every sinew to obtain
more. To effect this the democracy
will demand that those who carry on
public affairs shall not be persons
solely acquainted with the elegant
fancies and stories of past ages, but
shall be trained in the acquisition of
natural knowledge and keenly active
in the skilful application of Nature
control to the development of the well
being of the community.
It would not be necessary to wait
for this pressure from below were the
well-to-do class — which in most
modern States exercises so large an
influence both in the actual adminis
tration of Governments and by example
—so situated as to be in any way
�NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
aware of the responsibilities which
rest upon it. Traditional education
has, owing to causes which are not far
to seek, deprived the well-to-do class
of a knowledge of, and interest in,
Man’s relation to Nature, and of his
power to control natural processes.
During the whole period of the growth
of Man’s knowledge of Nature—that is
to say, ever since the days of Bruno—
the education of the well-to-do has
been directed to the acquirement of
entertaining information and elegant
accomplishments, whilst “useful know
ledge ” has been despised and obtained
when considered necessary from lowerclass “ workmen ” at workmen’s wages.
It is of course not to be overlooked
that there have been notable excep
tions to this, but they have been excep
tions. Even at the present day, in
some civilised States, a body of clerks,
without any pretence to an education
in the knowledge of Nature, headed by
gentlemen of title, equally ignorant,
are entrusted with, and handsomely
paid and rewarded for, the superinten
dence of the armies, the navies, the
agriculture, the public works, the
fisheries, and even the public educa
tion of the State. When compelled
to seek the assistance of those who
have been trained in the knowledge of
Nature (for even in these States there
are a few such eccentric persons to be
found), the officials demand that such
assistance shall be freely given to them
without pay, or else offer to buy the
knowledge required at the rate paid to
a copying clerk.
This state of things is not one for
which it is possible to blame those
who, in blissful ignorance, contentedly
perform what they consider to be their
27
duty to their country. There are,
however, in many States institutions,
of vast influence in the education of
the whole community, known as
Universities. In many countries they
as well as the schools are directly con
trolled by the State. In England,
however, we are happy in having free
Universities, the older of which, though
in some important respects tied down
by law, yet have the power to deter
mine almost absolutely, not only what
shall be studied within their own walls,
but what shall be studied in all the
schools of the country frequented by
the children of the well-to-do.
It is the pride of our ancient Univer
sities that they are largely, if not ex
clusively, frequented by young men of
the class who are going to take an
active part in the public affairs of the
country — either as politicians and
statesmen, as governors of remote
colonies, or as leaders of the great
professions of the Church, the Law,
and Medicine. It would seem, then,
that if these Universities attached a
greater, even a predominant, import
ance to the studies which lead to the
knowledge and control of Nature, the
schools would follow their example,
and that the governing class of the
country would become acquainted with
the urgent need for more knowledge of
the kind, and for the immediate appli
cation in public affairs of that know
ledge which exists.
It would seem that in Great Britain,
at any rate, it would not be necessary,
were the Universities alive to the situa
tion, to await the pressure of demo
cracy, but that a better and more
rapid mode of development would
obtain; the influential and trusted
�28
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
leaders of the community would set
the example in seeking and using for
the good of the State the new know
ledge of Nature. The world has seen
with admiration and astonishment the
entire people of Japan follow the
example of its governing class in the
almost sudden adoption of the know
ledge and control of Nature as the
purpose of national education and the
guide of State administration. It is
possible that in a less rapid and
startling manner our old Universities
may, at no distant date, influence the
intellectual life of the more fortunate
of our fellow-citizens, and consequently
of the entire community. The weari
ness which is so largely expressed at
the present day in regard to human
effort—whether it be in the field of
politics, of literature, or of other art,
or in relation to the improvement of
social organisation and the individual
life—is possibly due to the fact that
we have exhausted the old sources of
inspiration, and have not yet learnt to
believe in the new. The “ return to
Nature,” which is sometimes vaguely
put forward as a cure for the all
pervading tcedium of this age, is
perhaps an imperfect expression of the
truth that it is time for civilized Man
not to return to the “ state of Nature,”
but to abandon his retrospective atti
tude and to take up whole-heartedly
the kingdom of Nature which it is his
destiny to rule. New hope, new life
will, when he does this, be infused
into every line of human activity:
Art will acquire a new impulse, and
politics become real and interesting.
To a community which believes in the
destiny of Man as the controller of
Nature, and has consciously entered
upon its fulfilment, there can be none
of the weariness and even despair
which comes from an exclusive wor
ship of the past. There can only be
encouragement in every victory gained,
hope and the realisation of hope.
Even in the face of the overwhelming
opposition and incredulity which now
unhappily have the upper hand, the
believer in the predestined triumph of
Man over Nature can exert himself to
place a contribution, however small,
in the great edifice of Nature-know
ledge, happy in the conviction that his
life has been worth living, has counted
to the good in the imperishable result.
20.—The Influence of Oxford.
If I venture now to consider more
specifically the influence exercised by
the University of Oxford upon the
welfare of the State and of the human
community in general, in view of the
conclusions which have been set forth
in what has preceded, I beg to say that
I do so with the greatest respect to the
opinions of others who differ from me.
When I say this I am not using an
empty formula. I mean that I believe
that there must be many University
men who are fair-minded and dis
interested, and have given special
attention to the matter of which I
wish to speak, and who are yet very
far from agreeing with me. I ask
them to consider what I have said,
and what I have further to say, in the
same spirit as that in which I approach
them.
It seems to me—and when I speak
of myself I would point out that I am
presenting the opinions of a large
number of educated men, and that
it will be better for me to avoid an
�NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
egotistical attitude-—it seems to us (I
prefer to say) that the University of
Oxford, by its present action in regard
to the choice and direction of subjects
of study, is exercising an injurious
influence upon the education of the
country, and especially upon the
education of those who will hereafter
occupy positions of influence, and will
largely determine both the action of
the State and the education and
opinions of those who will in turn
succeed them. The question has been
recently raised as to whether the
acquirement of a certain elementary
knowledge of the Greek language
should be required of all those who
desire to pursue their studies in this
University, and accordingly whether
the teaching of the elements of this
language should form a prominent
feature in the great schools of this
country. It seems to us that this is
only part of a much larger question—
namely, whether it is desirable to
continue to make the study of two
dead languages, and of the story of the
deeds of great men in the past, the
main, if not the exclusive, matter to
which the minds of the youth of the
well-to-do class are directed by our
schools and Universities. We have
come to the conclusion that this form
of education is a mistaken and injuri
ous one. We desire to make the chief
subject of education both in school
and in college a knowledge of Nature
as set forth in the sciences which are
spoken of as physics, chemistry, geo
logy, and biology. We think that all
education1 should consist, in the first
1 It is, perhaps, needful to point out that
what is aimed at is that the education of all
the youth of the country, both of pass-men
29
place, of this kind of knowledge, on
account of its commanding importance
both to the individual and to the
community. We think that every
man of even a moderate amount of
education should have acquired a
sufficient knowledge of these subjects
to enable him at any rate to appreciate
their value and to take an interest in
their progress and application to
human life. And we think further
that the ablest youths of the country
should be encouraged to proceed to
the extreme limit of present knowledge
in one or other branch of this know
ledge of Nature, so as to become
makers of new knowledge and the
possible discoverers of enduring im
provements in Man’s control of Nature.
No one should be educated so as to be
ignorant of the importance of these
things; and it should not be possible
for the greatest talent and mental
power to be diverted to other fields
of activity through the fact that the
necessary education and opportunity
in the pursuit of the knowledge of
Nature are withheld. The strongest
inducements in the way of reward
and consideration ought, we believe,
to be placed before a young man in the
direction of Nature-knowledge rather
than in the direction of other and far
less important subjects of study.
and of class-men, of girls as well as of boys,
of the rich as well as of the poor, should be
primarily directed to imparting an acquaint
ance with what we already possess in respect
of knowledge of Nature, and the training of
the pupil so as to enable him or her (a) to
make use of that knowledge, and (b) to take
part in gaining new knowledge of Nature, at
this moment needed but non-existent. This
does not involve the complete exclusion of
other subjects of instruction, to which about
one-third of the time and effort of school and
college life might be devoted.
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NATUBE’S INSUBGENT SON
In fact, we should wish to see the
classical and historical scheme of
education entirely abandoned, and its
place taken by a scheme of education
in the knowledge of Nature.
At the same time let me hasten to
say that few, if any, of us—and cer
tainly not he who writes these lines—
would wish to remove the acquirement
of the use of languages, the training in
the knowledge and perception of beauty
in literary art, and the feeding of the
mind with the great stories of the past
from a high and necessary position in
every grade of education.
It is a sad and apparently inevitable
accompaniment of all discussion of this
matter that those who advocate a great
and leading position for the knowledge
of Nature in education are accused of
desiring to abolish all study of litera
ture, history, and philosophy. This is,
in reality, so far from being the case
that we should most of us wish to see
a serviceable knowledge of foreign
languages, and a real acquaintance
with the beauties of English and
other literature, substituted for the
present unsuccessful efforts to teach
effectively either the language or
literature of the Greeks and Romans.
It should not be for one moment
supposed that those who attach the
vast importance which we do to the
knowledge of Nature imagine that
Man’s spirit can be satisfied by exclu
sive occupation with that knowledge.
We know as well as any that Man
does not live by bread alone. Though
the study of Nature is fitted to develop
great mental qualities—perseverance,
honesty, judgment, and initiative—we
do not suppose that it completes
Man’s mental equipment. Though
the knowledge of Nature calls upon,
excites, and gratifies the imagination
to a degree and in a way which is
peculiar to itself, we do not suppose
that it furnishes the opportunity for
all forms of mental activity. The
great joys of Art, the delights and
entertainment to be derived from the
romance and history of human char
acter, are not parts of it. They must
never be neglected. But are we not
justified in asserting that, for some
two hundred years or more, these
“ entertainments ” have been pursued
in the name of the highest education
and study to the exclusion of the far
weightier and more necessary know
ledge of Nature? “This should ye
have done, and yet not left the other
undone,” may justly be said to those
who have conducted the education of
our higher schools and Universities
along the pleasant lines of literature
and history, to the neglect of the
urgently needed “ improvement of
Natural Knowledge.” Nero was prob
ably a musician of taste and training,
and it was artistic and beautiful music
which he played while Rome was
burning; so, too, the studies of the
past carried on at Oxford have been
charming and full of beauty, whilst
England has lain, and lies, in mortal
peril for lack of knowledge of Nature.
It seems to be beyond dispute that
the studies, firstly of Latin, and much
more recently of Greek, were followed
in our Universities and in grammar
schools, not as educational exercises
in the use of language, but as keys to
unlock the storerooms—the books—in
which the knowledge of the ancients
was contained. So long as these keys
were needed, it was reasonable enough
�NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
that every well-educated man should
spend such time as was necessary in
providing himself with the key. But
now that the storerooms are empty,
now that their contents have been
appropriated and scattered far and
wide, in all languages of civilisation,
it seems to be merely an unreasoning
continuation of superannuated custom
to go on with the provision of these
keys. Such, however, is the force of
habit that it continues; new and
ingenious reasons for the practice are
put forward, whilst its original object
is entirely forgotten.
In the first place, it has come to be
regarded as a mark of good breeding,
and thus an end in itself, for a man to
have some first-hand acquaintance with
Latin and Greek authors, even when
he knows no other literature. It is a
fashion, like the wearing of a court
dress. This cannot be held to justify
the employment of most of the time
and energy of youth in its acquirement.
A second reason which is now put
forward for the practice is that the
effort and labour expended on the
provision of these keys—even though
it is admitted that they are useless—
are a wonderful and incomparably fine
exercise of the mind, fitting it for all
sorts of work. A theory of education
has been enunciated which fits in with
this defence of the continued attempt
to compel young men to acquire a
knowledge, however imperfect, of the
Latin and Greek languages. It is held
that what is called “ training the
mind ” is the chief, if not the only
proper, aim of education; and it is
declared that the continuation of the
study of those once useful, but now
useless, keys, Latin and Greek, is an
31
all-sufficient training. If this theory
were in accordance with the facts, the
conclusion in favour of giving a very
high place to the study so recom
mended would be inevitable. But the
facts do not support this theory.
Clever youths are taken and pressed
into the study of Greek and Latin,
and we are asked to conclude that
their cleverness is due to these studies.
On the other hand, we maintain that
though the study of grammar may be,
when properly carried out, a valuable
exercise, yet that it is easily converted
into a worthless one, and can never in
any case take the place of various other
forms of mental training, such as the
observation of natural objects, the
following out of experimental demon
stration of the qualities and relations
of natural bodies, and the devising and
execution of experiment as the test of
hypothesis. Apart from “ training,”
there is the need for providing the
mind with information as well as
method. The knowledge of Nature
is eagerly assimilated by young people,
and no training in mental gymnastics
can be a substitute for it or an excuse
for depriving the young of what is of
inestimable value and instinctively
desired.
The prominence which is assigned
to a familiarity with the details of
history, more especially of what may
be called biographical history, in the
educational system favoured by Oxford
seems to depend on the same causes
as those which have led to the main
tenance of the study of Greek and
Latin. To read history is a pleasant
occupation which has become a habit
and tradition. At one time men
believed that history repeats itself,
�32
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
.and it was thought to be a proper
and useful training for one who would
take part in public affairs to store his
mind with precedents and picturesque
narratives of prominent statesmen and
rulers in far-off days and distant lands.
As a matter of fact, it cannot be shown
that any statesman, or even the hum
blest politician, has ever been guided
to useful action by such knowledge.
History does not repeat itself, and the
man who thinks that it does will be
led by his fragmentary knowledge of
stories of the past into serious blun
ders. To the fashionable journalist
such biographical history furnishes
the seasoning for his essays on
political questions of the day. But
this does not seem to be a sufficient
reason for assigning so prominent a
place in University studies to this
kind of history as is at present the
case. The reason, perhaps, of the
favour which it receives is that it is
one of the few subjects which a man
of purely classical education can
pursue without commencing his edu
cation in elementary matters afresh.
It would be a serious mistake1 to
suppose that those who would give a
complete supremacy to the study of
Nature in our educational system do
not value and enjoy biographical
history for what it is worth as an
entertainment; or, further, that they
do not set great value upon the scien
tific study of the history of the struggles
of the races and nations of mankind, as
a portion of the knowledge of the
evolution of Man, capable of giving
conclusions of great value when it has
been further and more thoroughly
treated as a department of Anthro
pology. What seems to us undesirable
is that mere stories and bald records
of certain peoples should be put for
ward as matter with which the minds
of children.and young men are to be
occupied, to the exclusion of the allimportant matters comprised in the
knowledge of Nature.
There are, it is well known, not a
few who regard the present institution
of Latin and Greek and so-called
History, in the pre-eminent place
which they occupy in Oxford and the
great schools of the country, as some
thing of so ancient and fundamental a
character that to question the wisdom
of that institution seems an odious
proceeding, partaking of the nature of
blasphemy. This state of mind takes
its origin in a common error, due to
the fact that a straightforward account
of the studies pursued in the University
during the last five hundred years has
never been written. Our present cur
riculum is a mere mushroom growth
of the last century, and has no claim
whatever to veneration. Greek was
studied by but a dozen or two
specialists in Oxford two hundred
and fifty years ago. In those days,
in proportion to what had been ascer
tained in that subject and could be
taught, there was a great and general
interest in the University in the know
ledge of Nature, such as we should
gladly see revived at the present day.
As a matter of fact, it is only within
1 I desire especially to draw the attention the last hundred years that the dogma
of those who have misunderstood and mis of compulsory Greek, and the value of
represented my estimate of the importance
of the study of History to this paragraph. what is now called a classical educa
—E. B. L.
tion, has been promulgated. These
�NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
things are not historically of ancient
date ; they are not essentials of
Oxford. We are, therefore, well
within our right in questioning the
wisdom of their continuance in so
favoured a position, and we are war
ranted in expressing the hope that
those who can change the policy of
the University and Colleges in this
matter will, at no distant day, do so.1
It is sometimes urged that Oxford
should contentedly resign herself to
the overwhelming predominance given
to the study of ancient elegance and
historic wisdom within her walls. It
ip said that she may well be reserved
for these delightful pursuits, whilst
newer institutions should do the hard
work of aiding Man in his conquest of
Nature. At first sight, such a pro
posal has a tempting character: we
are charmed with the suggestion that
our beautiful Oxford should be en
closed by a ring fence, and cut off for
ever from the contamination of the
world. But a few moments’ reflection
must convince most of us that such a
treatment of Oxford is an insult to
her, and an impossibility. Oxford is
not dead. Only a few decades have
passed—a mere fraction of her life
time—since she was free from the
oppression of grammar-school studies,
and sent forth Robert Boyle and Chris
topher Wren to establish the New
Philosophy of the Invisible College in
London. She seems, to some of us,
to have been used not quite wisely,
1 [It is practically certain now, in 1912—
after the failure of the attempts of the last
five years at reform of the University initiated
by its own members—that the Oxford of to
day cannot, owing to its law-enforced system
of government, reform itself. A change in
that mode of government is inevitable.]
33
perhaps not quite fairly, in the brief
period which has elapsed since that
time. Why should she not shake her
self free again, and give, hereafter,
most, if not the whole, of her wealth
and strength to the urgent work which
is actually pursued in every other
University of the world as a chief aim
and duty ?
The fact that Oxford attracts the
youth of the country to her, and so
determines the education offered in
the great schools, is a sufficient answer
to those who wish to perpetuate the
present employment of her resources
in the subvention and encouragement
of comparatively unimportant, though
fascinating (even too fascinating),
studies, to the neglect of the pressing
necessary knowledge of'Nature. Those
who enjoy great influence in the affairs
of the University tell us with pride
that Oxford not only determines what
our best schools shall teach, but has,
as a main preoccupation, the education
of statesmen, pro-consuls, leaders of
the learned professions, and members
of Parliament! Undoubtedly this
claim is well founded; and its truth
is the reason why we cannot be con
tent with the maintenance by the
University of the compulsory study of
Greek and Latin, and the neglect to
make the study of Nature an integral
and predominant part of every man’s
education.
To return to my original contention
—the knowledge and control of Nature
is Man’s destiny and his greatest need.
To enable future leaders of the com
munity to comprehend this, to per
ceive what the knowledge and control
of Nature are, and what are the steps
by which they are gained and increased,
�34
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
is the duty of a great University. To
neglect this is to retard the approach
of well-being and happiness, and to
injure humanity.
I beg, finally, for toleration from
those who do not share my opinions.
I am well aware that they are open to
the objection that they partake more
of the nature of dreams of the future
than of practical proposals.1 That,
perhaps, may be accepted as my excuse
for indulging in them. There are, and
always have been, dreamers in Oxford;
and beautiful dreams they have
dreamed—some of the past, and some
of the future. The most fascinating
dreams are not, unfortunately, always
realised; but it is sometimes worth
while to tell one’s dream, for that may
bring it a step nearer to “ coming
true.”
1 The practical steps which would correspond
to the views enunciated in this discourse are
two. First, the formation of an educational
association to establish one or more schools
and colleges in which Nature-knowledge and
training in Nature-searching should be the
chief matters to which attention would be
given, whilst reasonable methods would also
be employed for implanting in the minds of
the students a love and understanding of
literature and other forms of art. Those who
desired such an education for their children
would support these schools and colleges, just
as, in the days of Anglican exclusiveness, the
Nonconformists and Roman Catholics sup
ported independent educational institutions.
The second practical step would be the forma
tion of a political union which would make
due respect to efficiency—that is to say, to a
knowledge of Nature—a test question in all
political contests. No candidate for Parlia
ment would receive the votes of the union
unless he were either himself educated in a
knowledge of Nature, or promised his support
exclusively to Ministers who would insist on
the utilisation of Nature-knowledge in the
administration of the great departments of
State, and would take active measures of a
financial character to develop, with far greater
rapidity and certainty than is at present the
case, that inquiry into and control of Nature
which is the indispensable factor in human
welfare and progress. Such a programme
will, I hope, at no distant date, obtain the
support of a sufficient number of Parlia
mentary voters to raise political questions of
a more genuine and interesting character than
those which many find so tedious at the
present moment.
[I have more than once been asked to write
on the question as to why, at the present
moment, there is so great a lack of “ efficient ”
men in all varieties and grades of occupation.
I venture to say that it is due to the mistaken
education administered in schools of all grades,
as well as in the Universities. A true and
skilfully graduated instruction in the facts
ascertained as to natural things, and m the
APPENDIX
I add here a brief statement published by me
in the “ Times,” May 17,1903, which touches
on the question of the origin of life and
certain theories of creation.
“ It seems to me that, were the dis
cussion excited by Lord Kelvin’s state
ments to the Christian Association at
University College allowed to close in
its present phase, the public would
be misled and injustice done both to
Lord Kelvin and his critics. I there
fore beg you to allow me to point out
what appear to me to be the signi
ficant features of the matter under
discussion.
“ Lord Kelvin, whose eminence as
a physicist gives a special interest to
his opinion upon any subject, made at
University College, or in his subse
quent letter to you, the following
statements:—“ 1. That ‘ fortuitous concourse of
atoms ’ is not an inappropriate des
cription of the formation of a crystal.
“ 2. That ‘ fortuitous concourse of
atoms ’ is utterly absurd in respect to
the coming into existence, or the
growth, or the continuation of the
methods by which they are ascertained, would
produce “ efficient ” men—men who can think
and act reasonably as the result of under
standing. But the teachers must first of all
be taught, and the teachers of the teachers !]
�NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
molecular combinations presented in
the bodies of living things.
“ 3. That, though inorganic pheno
mena do not do so, yet the phenomena
of such living things as a sprig of moss,
a microbe, a living animal—looked at
and considered as matters of scientific
investigation—compel us to conclude
that there is scientific reason for believ
ing in the existence of a creative and
directive purpose.
“ 4. That modern biologists are
coming once more to a firm accept
ance of something, and that is—a vital
principle.
“ In your article on the discussion
which has followed these statements
you declare that this (the opinions I
have quoted above) is ‘ a momentous
conclusion,’ and that it is a vital point
in the relation of science to religion.
“I do not agree with that view of
the matter, although I find Lord
Kelvin’s statements full of interest.
So far as I have been able to ascertain,
after many years in which these
matters have engaged my attention,
there is no relation, in the sense of
a connection or influence, between
science and religion. There is, it is
true, often an antagonistic relation
between exponents of science and ex
ponents of religion when the latter
illegitimately misrepresent or deny the
conclusions of scientific research or
try to prevent its being carried on, or,
again, when the former presume, by
magnifying the extremely limited con
clusions of science, to deal in a destruc
tive spirit with the very existence of
those beliefs and hopes which are
called ‘ religion.' Setting aside such
excusable and purely personal collisions
between rival claimants for authority
and power, it appears to me that
science proceeds on its path without
any contact with religion, and that
religion has not, in its essential quali
ties, anything to hope for, or to fear,
from science.
“ The whole order of nature, includ
35
ing living and lifeless matter—from
man to gas—is a network of mechanism
the main features and many details of
which have been made more or less
obvious to the wondering intelligence
of mankind by the labour and ingenuity
of scientific investigators. But no
sane man has ever pretended, since
science became a definite body of doc
trine, that we know, or ever can hope
to know or conceive of the possibility
of knowing, whence this mechanism
has come, why it is there, whither it
is going, and what there may or may
not be beyond and beside it which our
senses are incapable of appreciating.
These things are not ‘ explained ’ by
science, and never can be.
“ Lord Kelvin speaks of a ‘ fortuitous
concourse of atoms,’ but I must confess
that I am quite unable to apprehend
what he means by that phrase in the
connection in which he uses it. It
seems to me impossible that by for
tuitous ’ he can mean something which
is not determined by natural cause
and therefore is not part of the order
of nature. When an ordinary man
speaks of a concourse having arisen
‘ by chance ’ or ‘ fortuitously ’ he means
merely that the determining conditions
which have led by natural causation
to its occurrence were not known to
him beforehand; he does not mean to
assert that it has arisen without the
operation of such determining condi
tions and I am quite unable to under
stand how it can be maintained that
‘ the concourse of atoms ’ forming a
crystal, or even a lump of mud, is in
any philosophic sense more correctly
described as ‘ fortuitous ’ than is the
concourse of atoms which has given
rise to a sprig of moss or an animal.
It would be a matter of real interest
to many of your readers if Lord Kelvin
would explain more precisely what he
means by the distinction which he
has, somewhat dogmatically, laid down
I between the formation of a crystal as
' ‘ fortuitous ’ and the formation of an
�36
NATURE’S INSURGENT SON
organism as due to ‘ creative and
directive purpose.’
‘ I am not misrepresenting what
Lord Kelvin has said on this subject
when I say that he seems to have
formed the conception of a creator
who, first of all, without care or fore
sight, has produced what we call
matter,’ with its necessary properties,
and allowed it to aggregate and crystal
lise as a painter might allow his
pigments to run and intermingle on
his palette; and then, as a second
effort, has brought some of these
elements together with ‘ creative and
directive purpose,’ mixing them, as it
were, with ‘ a vital principle ’ so as to
form living things, just as the painter
might pick out certain colours from
his confused palette and paint a
picture.
This conception of the intermittent
action of creative power and purpose
does not, I confess, commend itself to
me. That, however, is not so surpris
ing as that it should be thought that
this curious conception of the action
of creative power is of value to religion.
Whether the intermittent theory is a
true or an erroneous conception seems
to me to have nothing to do with
‘ religion ’ in the large sense of that
word so often misused. It seems to
me to,be a kind of mythology, and I
should have thought could be of no
special assistance to teachers of Chris
tianity. Such theories of divided
creative operations are traceable his
torically to polytheism.
Lastly, with reference to Lord
Kelvin’s statement that * modern bio
logists are coming once more to a firm
acceptance of something—and that is
a vital principle.” ’ I will not venture
to doubt that Lord Kelvin has such
persons among his acquaintance. On
the other hand, I feel some confidence
in stating that a more extensive ac
quaintance with modern biologists
would have led Lord Kelvin to perceive
that those whom he cites are but a
trifling percentage of the whole. I do
not myself know of anyone of admitted
leadership among modern biologists
who is showing signs of ‘ coming to a
belief in the existence of a vital
principle.’
Biologists were, not many years
ago, so terribly hampered by these
hypothetical entities—‘ vitality,’ ‘ vital
spirits,’ ‘ anima animans,’ ‘ archetypes,’
vis medicatrix,’ ‘ providential artifice,’
and others which I cannot now
enumerate—that they are very shy of
setting any of them up again. Physi
cists, on the other hand, seem to have
got on very well with their proble
matic entities, their ‘ atoms ’ and
ether,’ and ‘the sorting demon of
Maxwell.’ Hence,perhaps, Lord Kelvin
offers to us, with a light heart, the
hypothesis of a ‘ vital principle ’ to
smooth over some of our admitted
difficulties. On the other hand, we
biologists, knowing the paralysing in
fluence of such hypotheses in the
past, are as unwilling to have any
thing to do with ‘ a vital principle,’
even though Lord Kelvin erroneously
thinks we are coming to it, as we are
to accept other strange ‘ entities ’
pressed upon us by other physicists of
a modern and singularly adventurous
type. Modern biologists (I am glad
to be able to affirm) do not accept the
hypothesis of ‘ telepathy ’ advocated
by Sir Oliver Lodge, nor that of the in
trusions of disembodied spirits pressed
upon them by others of the same
school.
“We biologists take no stock in
these mysterious entities. We think
it a more helpful method to be patient
and to seek by observation of, and
experiment with, the phenomena of
growth and development to trace the
evolution of life and of living things
without the facile and sterile hypo
thesis of ‘ a vital principle.’ Similarly,
we seek by the study of cerebral
disease to trace the genesis of the
phenomena which are supposed by
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
37
some physicists who have strayed into I announcing the ‘ discovery ’ of ‘ tele
biological fields to justify them in I pathy ’ and a belief m ghosts.
Chapter II.
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE, 1881-1906
I PROPOSE to give in the following
pages an outline of the advance of
science in the twenty-five years which
immediately preceded the writing of
them. It is necessary to distinguish
two main kinds of advancement, both of
which are important. Francis Bacon
gave the title Advancement of Learning
to that book in which he explained
not merely the methods by which the
increase of knowledge was possible,
but advocated the promotion of know
ledge to a new and influential position
in the organisation of human society.
His purpose, says Dean Church, was
“ to make knowledge really and intel
ligently the interest, not of the school
or the study or the laboratory only,
but of society at large.” So that in
surveying the advancement of science
in the past quarter of a century we
should ask not only what are the new
facts discovered, the new ideas and
conceptions which have come into
activity, but what progress has science
made in becoming really and intelli
gently the interest of society at large.
Is there evidence that there is an
increase in the influence of science on
the lives of our fellow-citizens and in
the great affairs of the State ? Is
there an increased provision for secur
ing the progress of scientific investiga
tion in proportion to the urgency of
its need or an increased disposition to
secure the employment of really com
petent men trained in scientific inves
tigation for the public service ?
1.—The Increase of Knowledge in the
Several Branches of Science.
The boundaries of my own under
standing and the practical considera
tion of what is appropriate to a brief
essay must limit my attempt to give to
the general reader some presentation
of what has been going on in the
workshops of science in this last
quarter of a century. My point of
view is essentially that of the
naturalist, and in my endeavour to
speak of some of the new things and
new properties of things discovered in
recent years I find it is impossible to
give any systematic or detailed account
of what has been done in each division
of science. All that I shall attempt is
to mention some of the discoveries
which have aroused my own interest
and admiration. I feel, indeed, that it
is necessary to ask forbearance for my
presumption in daring to treat of so
many subjects in which I cannot claim
to speak as an authority, but only as a
�38
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
younger brother full of fraternal pride
and sympathy in the glorious achieve
ments of the great experimentalists
and discoverers of our day.
As one might expect, the progress of
the Knowledge of Nature (for it is to
that rather than to the historical,
moral, and mental sciences that
English-speaking people refer when
they use the word “science”) has
consisted, in the last twenty-five years,
in the amplification and fuller verifica
tion of principles and theories already
accepted, and in the discovery of
hitherto unknown things which either
have fallen into place in the existing
scheme of each science or have neces
sitated new views, some not very
disturbing to existing general concep
tions, others of a more startling and,
at first sight, disconcerting character.
Nevertheless, I think I am justified in
saying that, exciting and of entrancing
interest as have been some of the
discoveries of the past few years, there
has been nothing to lead us to conclude
that we have been on the wrong path,
nothing which is really revolutionary
—that is to say, nothing which cannot
be accepted by an intelligible modifica
tion of previous conceptions. There
is, in fact, continuity and healthy
evolution in the realm of science.
Whilst some onlookers have declared
to the public that science is at an end,
its possibilities exhausted, and but little
of the hopes it raised realised, others
have asserted, on the contrary, that
the new discoveries—such as those
relating to the X-rays and to radium
—are so inconsistent with previous
knowledge as to shake the foundations
of science, and to justify a belief in
any and every absurdity of an un
restrained fancy. These two recipro
cally destructive accusations are due
to a class of persons who must be
described as the enemies of science.
Whether their attitude is due to
ignorance or traditions of self-interest,
such persons exist. It is one of the
objects of our scientific associations
and societies to combat those asser
tions, and to demonstrate, by the dis
coveries announced at their meetings
and the consequent orderly building up
of the great fabric of “natural know
ledge,” that Science has not come to
the end of her work—has, indeed, only
as yet given mankind a foretaste of
what she has in store for it—that her
methods and her accomplished results
are sound and trustworthy, serving
with perfect adaptability for the
increase of true discovery and the
expansion and development of those
general conceptions of the processes
of Nature at which she aims.
New Chemical, Elements.—There can
be no doubt that the past quarter of a
century will stand out for ever in
human history as that in which
new chemical elements, not of an
ordinary type, but possessed of truly
astounding properties, were made
known with extraordinary rapidity
and sureness of demonstration. In
teresting as the others are, it is the
discovery of radio-activity and of the
element radium which so far exceeds
all others in importance that we may
well account it a supreme privilege
that it has fallen to our lot to live in
the days of this discovery. No single
discovery ever made by the searchers
of Nature even approaches that of
radio-activity in respect of the novelty
of the properties of matter suddenly
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
revealed by it. A new conception of
the structure of matter is necessitated
and demonstrated by it; and yet, so
far from being destructive and discon
certing, thp new conception fits in
with, grows out of, and justifies the
older schemes which our previous
knowledge has formulated.
Before saying more of radio-activity,
which is apt to eclipse in interest every
other topic of discourse, I must recall
the discovery of the five inert gaseous
elements by Rayleigh and Ramsay,
which belongs to the period on which
we are looking back. It was found
that nitrogen obtained from the atmo
sphere invariably differed in weight
from nitrogen obtained from one of
its chemical combinations ; and thus
the conclusion was arrived at by
Rayleigh that a distinct gas is present
in the atmosphere, to the extent of 1
per cent., which had hitherto passed
for nitrogen. This gas was separated,
and to it the name argon (the lazy
one) was given, on account of its
incapacity to combine with any other
element. Subsequently this argon was
found by Ramsay to be itself impure,
and from it he obtained three other
gaseous elements equally inert—
namely, neon, krypton, and xenon.
These were all distinguished from one
another by the spectrum, the sign
manual of an element given by the
light emitted in each case by the gas
when in an incandescent condition. A
fifti. inert gaseous element was dis
covered by Ramsay as a constituent
of certain minerals which was proved
by its spectrum to be identical with
an element discovered thirty years
ago by Sir Norman Lockyer in the
atmosphere of the sun, where it exists
39
in enormous quantities. Lockyer had
given the name u helium ” to this new
solar element, and Ramsay thus found
it locked up in certain rare minerals in
the crust of the earth.
But by helium we are led back to
radium, for it was found by Sir
William Ramsay and Dr. Soddy in 1904
that helium is actually formed by a
gaseous emanation from radium. As
tounding as the statement seems, yet
that is one of the many unprecedented
facts which recent study has brought
to light. The alchemist’s dream is, if
not realised, at any rate justified. One
element is actually under our eyes con
verted into another; the element radium
decays into a gas which changes
into another element—namely, helium.
Radium, this wonder of wonders,
was discovered owing to the study of
the remarkable phosphorescence, as it
is called—the glowing without heat—
of glass vacuum-tubes through which
electric currents are made to pass.
Crookes, Lenard, and Rontgen each
played an important part in this
study, showing that peculiar rays or
linear streams of at least three distinct
kinds are set up in such tubes—rays
which are themselves invisible, but
have the property of making glass or
other bodies which they strike glow
with phosphorescent light. The cele
brated Rontgen-rays make ordinary
glass give out a bright green light;
but they pass through it, and cause
phosphorescence outside in various
substances, such as barium platinocyanide, calcium tungstate, and many
other such salts; they also act on a
photographic plate and “ discharge ”
an electrified body such as an electro
scope. But the most remarkable
�40
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
feature about them is their power
of penetrating substances opaque to
ordinary light. They will pass through
thin metal plates or black paper or
wood, but are stopped by more or less
dense material. Hence it has been
possible to obtain “ shadow pictures ”
or skiagraphs by allowing the invisible
Rontgen-rays to pass through a limb,
or even a whole animal, the denser
bone stopping the rays, whilst the
skin, flesh, and blood let them through.
They are allowed to fall (still invisible)
on to a photographic plate, when a
picture like an ordinary permanent
photograph is obtained by their
chemical action, or they may be
made to exert their phosphorescence
producing power on a glass plate
covered with a thin coating of a
phosphorescent salt such as barium
platino-cyanide, when a temporary
picture in light and shade is seen.
The rays discovered by Rontgen
were known as the X-rays, because
their exact nature was unknown. Other
rays studied in the electrified vacuum
tubes are known as cathode rays or
radiant corpuscles, and others, again,
as the Lenard rays.
It occurred to M. Henri Becquerel,
as he himself tells us, to inquire
whether other phosphorescent bodies
besides the glowing vacuum-tubes of
the electrician’s laboratory can emit
penetrating rays like the X-rays. I
say <! other phosphorescent bodies,”
for this power of glowing without heat
—of giving out, so to speak, cold light
—is known to be possessed by many
mineral substances. It has become
familiar to the public in the form of
“ phosphorescent paint,” which con
tains sulphide of calcium, a substance
which shines in the dark after expo
sure to sunlight—that is to say, is
phosphorescent. Other sulphides and
the minerals fluor-spar, apatite, some
gems, and, in fact, a whole list of sub
stances have, under different condi
tions of treatment, this power of
phosphorescence or shining in the
dark without combustion or chemical
change. All, however, require some
special treatment, such as exposure to
sunlight or heat or pressure, to elicit
the phosphorescence, which is of short
duration only. Many of the com
pounds of a somewhat uncommon
metallic element called uranium, used
for giving a fine green colour to glass,
are phosphorescent substances, and it
was, fortunately, one of them which
Henri Becquerel chose for experiment.
Henri Becquerel is professor in the
Jardin des Plantes of Paris ; his labora
tory is a delightful old-fashioned build
ing, which had for me a special interest
and sanctity when, a few years ago, I
visited him there, for, a hundred years
before, it was the dwelling-house of
the great Cuvier. Here Henri Bec
querel’s father and grandfather—men
renowned throughout the world for
their discoveries in mineralogy, elec
tricity, and light—had worked, and
here he had himself gone almost daily
from his earliest childhood. Many an
experiment bringing new knowledge
on the relations of light and electricity
had Henri Becquerel carried out in
that quiet old-world place before the
day on which, about eighteen years
ago,1 he made the experimental inquiry,
“ Does uranium give off penetrating
rays like Rontgen rays ? ” He wrapped
1 [ I have altered these numbers so as to
make them correct in 1912.]
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
a photographic plate in black paper,
and on it placed and left lying there
for twenty-four hours some uranium
salt. He had placed a cross, cut out
in thin metallic copper, under the
uranium powder, so as to give some
shape to the photographic print should
one be produced. It was produced.
Penetrating rays were given off by the
uranium: the black paper was pene
trated, and the form of the copper
cross was printed on a dark ground
(Fig. 9). The copper was also pene
trated to some extent by the rays from
the uranium, so that its image was
not left actually white. Only one
step more remained before Becquerel
made his great discovery. It was
known, as I stated just now, that
sulphide of calcium and similar sub
stances become, phosphorescent when
exposed to sunlight, and lose this
phosphorescence after a few hours.
Becquerel thought at first that perhaps
the uranium salt had acquired its
power similarly by exposure to light;
but very soon, by experimenting with
uranium salt long kept in the dark, he
found that the emission of penetrating
rays, giving photographic effects, was
produced spontaneously without any
immediately antecedent action of light,
heat, or pressure upon the salt. The
emission of rays by this particular
sample of uranium salt has shown no
sign of diminution since this discovery.
The emission of penetrating rays by
uranium was soon found to be inde
pendent of its phosphorescence. Phos
phorescent bodies, as such, do not
emit penetrating rays. Uranium com
pounds, wThether phosphorescent or
not, emit, and continue to emit, these
penetrating rays, capable of passing
41
through black paper and in a less
degree through metallic copper. They
do not derive this property from the
action of light or any other treatment.
The emission of these rays discovered
by Becquerel is a new property of
matter. It is called “ radio-activity,”
and the rays are called Becquerel rays.
From this discovery by Becquerel
to the detection and separation of the
new element radium is an easy step
in thought, though one of enormous
Fig. 9.—Henri Becquerel’s Discovery
Radio-Activity.
of
Photographic print or skiagraph of a copper
Maltese Cross produced by uranium, salt placed
as a heap of powder on the surface of black
paper wrapped round a sensitive plate. Between
the paper and the uranium powder the fiat copper
cross was interposed. The rays from the uranium
salt have penetrated the black paper, but have
been intercepted to a large extent by the copper
cross—so that the sensitive silver plate is darkened
all about the cross-over an area corresponding
to that of the heap of uranium salt, but is left
pale where the copper figure blocked the path of
the active rays given off by the uranium, partially
but not wholly. It was thus proved that the rays
from the uranium salt can pass through blackened
paper and also, though to a less extent, through
a plate of copper.
labour and difficulty in practice. Pro
fessor Pierre Curie (whose name I
cannot mention without expressing
the grief caused to all men of science
by the sad accident by which his life
was taken) and his wife, Madame
Sklodowska Curie, incited by Bec
querel’s discovery, examined the ore
called pitch-blende, which is worked in
mines in Bohemia and is found also
in Cornwall. It is the ore from which
�42
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
all commercial uranium is extracted.
The Curies found that pitch-blende
has a radio-activity four times more
powerful than that of metallic uranium
itself. They at once conceived the
idea that the radio-activity of the
uranium salts examined by Becquerel
is due not to the uranium itself, but
to another element present with it in
variable quantities. This proved to
be in part true. The refuse of the
first processes by which in the manu
facturer’s works the uranium is ex
tracted from its ore, pitch-blende, was
found to contain four times more of
the radio-active matter than does the
pure uranium. By a long series of
fusions, solutions, and crystallisations
the Curies succeeded in “ hunting
down,” as it were, the radio-active
element. The first step gave them a
powder mixed with barium chloride,
and having 2,000 times the activity of
the uranium in which Becquerel first
proved the existence of the new pro
perty—radio-activity. Then step by
step they purified it to a condition
10,000 times, then to 100,000 times,
and finally to the condition of a
crystalline salt having 1,800,000 times
the activity of Becquerel’s sample of
uranium. The purification could not
be carried further, but the extraor
dinary minuteness of the quantity of
the pure radio-active substance ob
tained and the amount of labour and
time expended in preparing it may be
judged of from the fact that of one ton
of the pitch-blende ore submitted to
the process of purification only the
hundredth of a gram—the one-seventh
of a grain—remained.
The amount of radium in pitch
blende is one ten-millionth per cent.—
rarer than gold in sea-water. The
marvel of this story and of all that
follows consists largely in the skill
and accuracy with which our chemists
and physicists have learnt to deal with
such infinitesimal quantities, and the
gigantic theoretical results which are
securely posed on this pin-point of
substantial matter.
The Curies at once determined that
the minute quantity of colourless
crystals they had obtained was the
chloride of a new metallic element
with the atomic weight 225, to which
they gave the name “radium.” The
proof that radium is an element is
given by its “ sign-manual ” — the
spectrum which it shows to the ob
server when in the incandescent state.
It consists of six bright lines and three
fainter lines in the visible part of the
spectrum, and of three very intense
lines in the ultra-violet (invisible) part
(Fig. 10). A very minute quantity is
enough for this observation ; the lines
given by radium are caused by no
other known element in heaven or
earth. They prove its title to be
entered on the roll-call of elements.
The atomic weight was determined
in the usual way by precipitating the
chlorine in a solution of radium chloride
by means of silver. None of the
precious element was lost in the pro
cess, but the Curies never had enough
of it to venture on any attempt to pre
pare pure metallic radium. This is a
piece of extravagance no one has yet
dared to undertake. Altogether the
Curies did not have more than some
four or five grains of chloride of radium
to experiment with, and the total
amount prepared and now in the hands
of scientific men in various parts of
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
the world probably does not amount
to more than an ounce or two at most.
When Professor Curie lectured on
radium nine years ago at the Royal
Institution in London, he made use
of a small tube, an inch long and of
one-eightii bore, containing nearly the
43
whole of his precious store, wrenched
by such determined labour and con
summate skill from tons of black,
shapeless pitch-blende. On his return
to Paris, he was one day demonstrat
ing in his lecture - room with this
precious tube the properties of radium,
�u
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
when it slipped from his hands, broke,
and scattered far and wide the most
precious and magical powder ever
dreamed of by alchemist or artist of
romance. Every scrap of dust was
immediately and carefully collected,
dissolved, and re-crystallised, and the
disaster averted with a loss of but a
minute fraction of the invaluable
product.
Thus, then, we have arrived at the
discovery of radium—the new element
endowed in an intense form with the
new property, “radio-activity,” dis
covered by Becquerel. The wonder
of this powder, incessantly and without
loss, under any and all conditions
pouring forth, by virtue of its own
intrinsic property, powerful rays cap
able of penetrating opaque bodies, and
of exciting phosphorescence and acting
on photographic plates, can perhaps
be realised when we reflect that it is
as marvellous as though we should
dig up a stone which, without external
influence or change, continually poured
forth light or heat, manufacturing both
in itself, and not only continuing to do
so without appreciable loss or change,
but necessarily having always done so
for countless ages whilst sunk beyond
the ken of man in the bowels of the
earth.
Wonderful as the story is, so far it
is really simple and commonplace com
pared with what yet remains to be
told. I will only barely and abruptly
state the fact that radio-activity has
been discovered in other elements,
some very rare, such as actinium and
polonium; others more abundant and
already known, such as thorium and
uranium, though their radio-activity
was not known until Becquerel’s
pioneer discovery. It is a little
strange, and no doubt significant,
that, after all, pure uranium is found
to have a radio-activity of its own, and
not to have been altogether usurping
the rights of its infinitesimal associate.
The wonders connected with radium
really begin when the experimental
examination of the properties of a few
grains is made. What I am saying
here is not a systematic, technical
account of radium ; so I shall venture
to relate some of the story as it im
presses me.
Leaving aside for a moment what
has been done in regard to the more
precise examination of the rays emitted
by radium, the following astonishing
facts have been found out in regard
to it: (1) If a glass tube containing
radium is much handled or kept in
the waistcoat pocket, it produces a
destruction of the skin and flesh over
a small area—in fact, a sore place.
(2) The smallest trace of radium
brought into a room where a charged
electroscope is present causes the dis
charge of the electroscope. So power
ful is this electrical action of radium
that a very sensitive electrometer can
detect the presence of a quantity of
radium five hundred thousand times
more minute than that which can be
detected by the spectroscope (that is
to say, by the spectroscopic examina
tion of a flame in which minute traces
of radium are present). (3) Badium
actually realises one of the properties
of the hypothetical stone to which I
compared it giving out light and heat.
For it does give out heat, which it
makes itself incessantly and without
appreciable loss of substance or energy
(“ appreciable ” is here an important
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
qualifying term). It is also faintly
self-luminous. Fairly sensitive ther
mometers show that a few granules
of radium salt have always a higher
temperature than that of surrounding
bodies. Eadium has been proved to
give out enough heat to melt rather
more than its own weight of ice every
hour; enough heat in one hour to
raise its own weight of water from
the freezing-point to the boiling-point.
After a year and six weeks a gram of
radium has emitted enough heat to
raise the temperature of a thousand
kilograms of water one degree. And
this is always going on. Even a small
quantity of radium diffused through
the earth will suffice to keep up its
temperature against all loss by radia
tion ! If the sun consists of a fraction
of one per cent, of radium, this will
account for and make good the heat
that is annually lost by it in its present
greatly cooled condition.
This is a tremendous fact, upsetting
all the calculations of physicists as to
the duration in past and future of the
sun’s heat and the temperature of the
earth’s surface. The geologists and
the biologists have long contended that
some thousand million years must
have passed during which the earth’s
surface has presented approximately
the same conditions of temperature as
at present, in order to allow time for
the evolution of living things and the
formation of the aqueous deposits of
the earth’s crust. The physicists,
notably Professor Tait and Lord Kel
vin, refused to allow more than ten
million years (which they subsequently
increased to a hundred million), basing
this estimate on the rate of cooling of
a sphere of the size and composition
45
of the earth. They have assumed
that its material is self-cooling. But,
as Huxley pointed out, mathematics
will not give a true result when ap
plied to erroneous data. It has now,
within these last five years, become
evident that the earth’s material is
not absolutely self-cooling, but, on the
contrary, to some extent, self-heating.
And away go the restrictions imposed
by physicists on geological time. They
now are willing to give us, not merely
a thousand million years, but as many
more as we want.
And now I have to mention the
strangest of all the proceedings of
radium—a proceeding in .which the
other radio-active bodies, actinium
and thorium, resemble it. This pro
ceeding has been entirely the discovery
of Eutherford [now, 1912, Professor
in Manchester], and his name must be
always associated with it. Eadium (he
discovered) is continually giving off,
apart from and in addition to the
rectilinear darting rays of Becquerel,
an “ emanation ”—a gaseous “ emana
tion.” This “ emanation ” is radio
active—that is, gives off Becquerel
rays—and deposits “ something ” upon
bodies brought near the radium, so
that they become radio-active, and
remain so for a time after the radium
is itself removed. This emanation is
always being formed by a radium salt,
and may be most easily collected by
dissolving the salt in water, when it
comes away with a rush, as a gas.
Sixty milligrams of bromide of radium
yielded to Eamsay and Soddy .124
(or about one-eighth) of a cubic milli
metre of this gaseous emanation.
What is it? It cannot be destroyed
or altered by heat or by chemical
�46
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
agents; it is a heavy gas, having a
molecular density of 100, and it can
be condensed to a liquid by exposing
it to the great cold of liquid air. It
gives a peculiar spectrum of its own,
and is probably a hitherto unknown
inert gas—a new element similar to
argon.1 But this by no means com
pletes its history, even so far as ex
periments have as yet gone.
The
radium emanation decays, changes its
character altogether, and loses half its
radio-activity every four days. Pre
cisely at the same rate as it decays
the specimen of radium salt from
which it was removed forms a new
quantity of emanation, having just the
amount of radio-activity which has
been lost by the old emanation. All
is not known about the decay of the
emanation; but one thing is abso
lutely certain, having first been dis
covered by Ramsay and Soddy, and
subsequently confirmed by independent
experiment by Madame Curie. It is
this: After being kept three or four
days, the emanation becomes, in part
at least, converted into helium—the
light gas (second only in the list of
elements to hydrogen) found thirty
years ago by Lockyer in the sun,
and since obtained in some quantities
from rare radio - active minerals by
Ramsay ! The proof of the formation
of helium from the radium emanation
is, of course, obtained by the spectro
scope, and its evidence is beyond assail
(see Pig. 11). Here, then, is the par
tial conversion or decay of one element,
radium, through an intermediate stage
into another. And not only that, but
if, as seems probable, the presence of
helium indicates the previous presence
of radium, we have the evidence of
enormous quantities of radium in the
sun, for we know helium is there in
vast quantity. Not only that, but, in
asmuch as helium has been discovered
in most hot springs and in various radio
active minerals in the earth, it may be
legitimately argued that no inconsider
able quantity of radium is present in
the earth. Indeed, it now seems
probable that there is enough radium
in the sun to keep up its present con
tinual output of heat, and enough in
the earth to make good its present
loss of heat by radiation into space,
for an almost indefinite period. Other
experiments of a similar kind have
rendered it practically certain that
radium itself is formed by a somewhat
similar transformation of uranium, so
that our ideas as to the permanence
and immutability on this globe of the
chemical elements are destroyed, and
must give place to new conceptions.
It seems not improbable that the final
product of the radium emanation, after
the helium is removed, is, or becomes,
the metal lead!
It must be obvious from all the
foregoing that radium is very slowly,
but none the less surely, destroying
itself. There is a definite loss of
particles, which, in the course of
time, must lead to the destruction of
the radium; and it would seem that
the large new credit on the bank of
time given to biologists in consequence
of its discovery has a definite, if remote,
limit. With the quantities of radium
at present available for experiment, the
1 [Sir William Ramsay has recently given
the name “Niton,” meaning “the shining amount of loss of particles is so small,
and the rate so slow, that it cannot be
one,” to this element.]
�47
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
weighed by the most delicate balance.
Nevertheless, it has been calculated
that a given quantity of radium will
transform half of itself in about fifteen
maintenance of the earth’s tempera
ture. As a reply to this depreciatory
statement, we have the discovery by
Rutherford and others that radium is
Tube containing
Helium gas de
rived from the
mineral Clevelandite.
A
B
Tube of Radium
emanation, a
year old.
C
Tube of Hydro
gen gas for
comparison.
Fig. 11.
Photographs of the “ spark” spectra of A, Helium as extracted from the mineral Clevelandite, of B,
the Radium “ emanation ” after a year’s enclosure in the tube used, and of C, of hydrogen gas : copied
from the paper by Mr. F. Giesel in the Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft, Vol. XXXIX.,
part 10.
The three photos are accurately super-imposed so as to show the coincident lines.
.
The spectrum B of the tube containing radium emanation is the one which we are comparing with
the other two. When the radium emanation was first enclosed there was only a small quantity of
helium developed in it, but after keeping for a year the quantity has greatly increased. After five
minutes’ “sparking” (passage of the electric spark through the tube) the chief lines of. helium become
evident but faint in intensity. The present photograph B was obtained after forty minutes’ sparking,
and one result of that longer “sparking ” has been that a minute quantity of water vapour in the tube
has been broken up—so as to yield the hydrogen spectrum, which is accordingly seen accompanying the
now strong and. brightly developed helium spectrum.
The lines of the spectrum B which correspond with those of hydrogen are at once recognised by the
juxtaposition (below) of the pure Hydrogen spectrum from another tube, C : the lines in B belonging to
and indicating helium are also recognised by comparison with the pure helium spectrum of the tube A
juxtaposed above. A very few of the lines in B must be due to other minimal impurities, as they are
not present either in A or C.
Thirteen lines of the helium spectrum are thus photographed and recognised in the radium
emanation.
The following lines are present in the photographic but invisible spectrum of radium (not given in
Fig. 10), viz., at 381’47 /x/x (the strongest line in the radium spectrum) and at 364'96 (a strong line).
In the photographic but invisible spectrum of helium there are three very faint lines between wave
length 447'2 and 443'7 (appearing as two only in our photograph); a moderately strong one at 438'8;
others at 414'4, at 412'1, at 402‘6, and 396'5 ; a very strong one is present, at 388'9, and a very faint one at
381'9. All these are seen in the photograph A and also in B. Special treatment and spectroscopes
reveal four other very faint lines in the helium spectrum—the one furthest in the invisible direction
(that is, of highest refrangibility and lowest wave-length) being placed at 318'6 (Soddy).
hundred years, and unless it were
being produced in some way all the
radium now in existence would dis
appear much too soon to make it an
important geological factor in the
continually being formed afresh, and
from that particular element in con
nection with which it was discovered
—namely, uranium. Hypotheses and
experiments as to the details of this
�48
THE ADVANCE OE SCIENCE
process are at this moment in full
swing, and in this connection results
of a momentous kind are thought by
some physicists to be not improbable
in the immediate future.
The delicate electric test for radio
activity has been largely applied in the
last few years to all sorts and condi
tions of matter. As a result, it appears
that the radium emanation is always
present in our atmosphere ; that the
air in caves is especially rich in it, as
are underground waters and the soil.
Tin-foil, glass, silver, zinc, lead, copper,
platinum, and aluminium are all of
them slightly radio-active. The ques
tion has been raised whether this
widespread radio-activity is due to the
wide dissemination of infinitesimal
quantities of strong radio-active ele
ments, or whether it is the natural
intrinsic property of all matter to
emit Becquerel rays. This is the
immediate subject of research.
Over and above the more simply
appreciable facts which I have thus
narrated there comes the necessary
and difficult inquiry: What does it all
mean ? What are the Becquerel rays
of radio-activity? What must we
conceive to be the structure and
mechanism of the atoms of radium
and allied elements, which can not
only pour forth ceaseless streams of
intrinsic energy from their own
isolated substance, but are perpetu
ally, though in infinitesimal propor
tions, changing their elemental nature
spontaneously, so as to give rise to
other atoms which we recognise as
other elements ?
I cannot venture as an expositor
into this field. It belongs to that
wonderful group of men the modern |
physicists, who with an almost weird
power of visual imagination combine
the great instrument of exact state
ment and mental manipulation called
mathematics, and possess an ingenuity
and delicacy in appropriate experiment
which must fill all who even partially
follow their triumphant handling of
Nature with reverence and admiration.
Such men now or recently among us
are Kelvin, Clerk Maxwell, Crookes,
Rayleigh, and J. J. Thomson.
Becquerel showed early in his study
of the rays emitted by radium that
some of them could be bent out of
their straight path by making them
pass between the poles of a powerful
electro-magnet. In this way have
finally been distinguished three classes
of rays given off by radium: (1) the
alpha rays, which are only slightly
bent, and have little penetrative
power; (2) the beta rays, easily bent
in a direction opposite to that in
which the alpha rays bend, and of
considerable penetrative power; (3) the
gamma rays, which are absolutely un
bendable by the strongest magnetic
force, and have an extraordinary pene
trative power, producing a photographic
effect through a foot thickness of solid
iron.
The alpha rays are shown to be
streams of tiny bodies positively elec
trified, such as are given off by gas
flames and red-hot metals. The par
ticles have about twice the mass of a
hydrogen atom, and they fly off with
a velocity of 20,000 miles a second
—that is, 40,000 times greater than
that of a rifle-bullet. The heat pro
duced by radium is ascribed to the
impact of these particles of the alpha
rays.
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
The beta rays are streams of cor
puscles similar to those given off by
the cathode in a vacuum tube. They
are charged with negative electricity,
and travel at the velocity of 100,000
miles a second. They are far more
minute than the alpha particles. Their
mass is equal to the one-thousandth
of a hydrogen atom. They produce
the major part of the photographic
and phosphorescent effects of the
radium rays.
The gamma rays are apparently the
same, or nearly the same, thing as the
X-rays of Rontgen. They are probably
not particles at all, but pulses or waves
in the ether set up during the ejection
of the corpuscles which constitute the
beta rays. They produce the same
effects in a much smaller degree as do
the beta rays, but are more pene
trating.
The kind of conceptions to which
these and like discoveries have led the
modern physicist in regard to the
character of that supposed unbreakable
body the chemical atom—the simple
and unaffected friend of our youth—
are truly astounding. Nevertheless,
they are not destructive of our previous
conceptions, but rather elaborations
and developments of the simpler views,
introducing the notion of structure and
mechanism, agitated and whirling with
tremendous force, into what we for
merly conceived of as homogeneous or
simply built-up particles, the earlier
conception being not so much a posi
tive assertion of simplicity as a non
committal expectant formula awaiting
the progress of knowledge and the reve
lations which are now in our hands.
As I have already stated, the
attempt to show in detail how the
49
marvellous properties of radium and
radio-activity in general are thus
capable of a pictorial or structural
representation is beyond the limits of
the present essay ; but the fact that
such speculations furnish a scheme
into which the observed phenomena
can be fitted is what we may take on
the authority of the physicists and
chemists of our day.
Intimately connected with all the
work which has been done in the past
twenty-five years in the nature and
possible transformations of atoms is
the great series of investigations and
speculations on astral chemistry and
the development of the chemical
elements which we owe to the un
remitting labour during this period of
Sir Norman Lockyer.
Wireless Telegraphy.—Of great im
portance has been the whole progress
in the theory and practical handling
of electrical phenomena of late years.
The discovery of the Hertzian waves
and their application to wireless tele
graphy is a feature of this period,
though I may remind some of those
who have been impressed by these
discoveries that the mere fact of
electrical action at a distance is that
which hundreds of years ago gave to
electricity its name. The power which
we have gained of making an instru
ment oscillate in accordance with
a predetermined code of signalling,
although detached and a thousand
miles distant, does not really lend any
new support1 to the notion that the
1 It seems necessary to emphasise that I
here say merely that no “ new support ” is
given to the notion of so-called telepathy, a
support some persons have wrongly claimed.
I do not say that the notion is rendered less
likely to prove true than it was before. At
�50
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
old-time beliefs of thought-transference physical agents such as light and
and second sight are more than illu electricity for evidence as to the
sions based on incomplete observation arrangement of atoms in the molecules
and imperfect reasoning. For the im of the most diverse chemical com
portant factors in such human inter pounds. The study of “ valency ” and
course—namely, a signalling-instru its outcome, stereo-chemistry, have
ment and a code of signals—have not been the special lines in which ch emi sbeen discovered as yet in the structure try has advanced. As a matter of
of the human body, and have to be course hundreds, if not thousands, of
consciously devised and manufactured new chemical bodies have been pro
by man in the only examples of thought duced in the laboratory of greater or
transference over long distances at less theoretical interest. The discovery
present discovered or laid bare to of the greatest practical and industrial
experiment and observation.
importance in this connection is the
High and Low Temperatures.—The production of indigo by synthetical
past quarter of a century has witnessed processes, first by laboratory and then
a great development and application by factory methods, so as to compete
of the methods of producing both very successfully with the natural product.
low and very high temperatures. Sir Van Baeyer and Heumann are the
James Dewar, by improved apparatus, names associated with this remarkable
has produced liquid hydrogen and a achievement, which has necessarily
fall of temperature probably reaching dislocated a large industry which
to the absolute zero. A number of derived its raw material from British
applications of extremely low tem India.
Astronomy.—A biologist may well
peratures to research in various direc
tions has been rendered possible by refuse to offer any remarks on his
the facility with which they may now own authority in regard to this
be produced. Similarly high tempera earliest and grandest of all the
tures have been employed in continua sciences. I will, therefore, at once
tion of the earlier work of Deville and say that my friend the Savilian
others by Moissan, the distinguished Professor of Astronomy in Oxford
has turned my thoughts in the right
French chemist.
Progress in Chemistry.—In chemis direction in regard to this subject.
try generally the theoretical tendency There is no doubt that there has
guiding a great deal of work has been been an immense “revival” in astro
the completion and verification of the nomy since 1881; it has developed
“periodic law” of Mendeldeff; and, in every direction. The invention of
on the other hand, the search by the “ dry plate,” which has made it
possible to apply photography freely
the same time I have no hesitation in saying in all astronomical work, is the chief
that the “ stories ” related and regarded by cause of its great expansion. Photo
some persons as evidence of the existence of
telepathy are not to be accepted as free from graphy was applied to astronomical
the influence of illusion and erroneous obser work before 1881, but only with diffi
vation, even in those cases where the good
culty, and haltingly. It was the
faith of the narrator is admitted.
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
51
OS
T—1
6
Pm
This figure should be examined with a magnifying glass. It is a direct reproduction of a photograph
of a detached nebula and surrounding stars in Cygnus by Dr. Max Wolf of Heidelberg (reproduced bv
permission from the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. TjXIV, Plate 18, p. 839 q.v.).
rhe exposure was four hours on July 10,1901, with a camera the lenses of which have a diameter of
sixteen inches. The picture is enlarged so that the apparent diameter of the sun or moon would be
about is inch on the same scale (one minute, or sixtieth of a degree, equals one milimetre).
[ Continued on next page.
�52
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
dry-plate (see Fig. 12) which made long
exposures possible, and thus enabled
astronomers to obtain regular records
of faintly luminous objects such as
nebulae and star-spectra. Roughly
speaking, the number of stars visible
to the naked eye may be stated as
eight thousand; this is raised by the
use of our best telescopes to some
hundred million. But the number
which can be photographed is inde
finite, and depends on length of
exposure; some thousands of millions
can certainly be so recorded.
The serious practical proposal to
“ chart the sky ” by means of photo
graphy certainly dates from this side
of 1881. The Paris Conference of
1887, which made an international
scheme for sharing the sky among
eighteen observatories (still busy with
the work, and producing excellent
results), originated with photographs
of the comet of 1882, taken at the
Cape Observatory.
Professor Pickering, of Harvard, did
not join this co-operative scheme, but
has gradually devised methods of
charting the sky very rapidly, so
that he has at Harvard records of
the whole sky many times over; and
when new objects are discovered he.
can trace their history backwards for
more than a dozen years by reference
to his plates. This is a wonderful
new method, a mode of keeping record
of present movements and changes
which promises much for the future
of astronomy. By the photographic
method hundreds of new variable stars
and other interesting objects have
been discovered. New planets have
been detected by the hundred. Up
to 1881 two hundred and twenty were
known. In 1881 only one was found
—namely, Stephania, being No. 220,
discovered on May 19. Now a score
at least are discovered every year.
Over five hundred are now known.
One of these—-Eros (No. 433)—-is
particularly interesting, since it is
nearer to the sun than is Mars, and
gives a splendid opportunity for fixing
with increased accuracy the sun’s
distance from the earth. Two new
satellites to Saturn and two to Jupiter
have been discovered by photography
(besides one to Jupiter in 1892 by the
visual telescope of the Lick Observa
tory). One of the new satellites of
Saturn goes round that planet the
wrong way, thus calling for a funda
mental revision of our ideas of the
origin of the solar system.
The introduction of photography
has made an immense difference in
The “apparent diameter” of the sun or moon is about one in 115: that is to say, that a covering disc
of any size you like can be made exactly to coincide with and cover” the disc of the sun or moon
provided that you place it at a distance from the eye equal to 115 times its own diameter--thus a disc oi
an inch in diameter (say a halfpenny) will just “ cover ” the sun or moon if placed at a distance from tne
eye of a little less than ten feet, a threepenny piece will cover it at about six feet, and a disc of some
what less than half that size when held at arm’s length.
_ . .
The nebula (on the horizontal A A) is seen surrounded by a dark space—at the end of a lon& dark lane
or “ rift ” which reminds us of the track left by a snowball rolled along in the snow. Has the nebula in
some mysterious way swept up the stars in its journey through space? We cannot at present eitner
affirm or deny such interpretations.
.
,
,
o
One or two of the brightest of the surrounding stars might just be seen by an acute eye unaided oy a
telescope—but no more. The best existing telescopes would show only the large nebular body on tne
line A A, and the larger white spots; the finest dust-like particles are stars of which the existence is omy
demonstrated by prolonged photographic exposures such as this, with a lens which focuses its, image on
to the dry plate. The old “ wet-plate” would not remain wet sufficiently long to take the picture.
It should be borne in mind in looking at this picture that each of the minutest white spots is pro
bably of at least the same size as our 9VS sun; further, that each is probably surrounded by a planetary
system similar to our OW£P
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
spectroscopic work. The spectra of
the stars have been readily mapped
out and classified, and now the
motions in the line of sight of faint
stars
can
be
determined.
This
“motion in the line of sight,” which
was discernible but scarcely measur
able with accuracy before, now pro
vides one of the most refined methods
in astronomy for ascertaining the
dimensions and motions of the uni
verse. It gives us velocities in miles
per second instead of in an angular
unit to be interpreted by a very
imperfect knowledge of the star’s
distance. The method, initiated prac
tically by Huggins thirteen years
before, was in 1881 regarded by many
astronomers as a curiosity. Visual
observations were begun at Green
wich in 1875, but were found to be
affected by instrumental errors. The
introduction of dry plates, and their
application by Vogel in 1887, was the
beginning of general use of the method,
and line-of-sight work is now a vast
department of astronomical industry.
Among other by-products of the method
are the “ spectroscopic doubles,” stars
which we know to be double, and
of which we can determine the period of
revolution, though we cannot separate
them visually by the greatest telescope.
Work on the sun has been entirely
revolutionised by the use of photo
graphy. The last decade has seen the
invention of the spectro-heliograph—
which simply means that astronomers
can now study in detail portions of
the sun of which they could previously
only get a bare indication.
More of the same story could be
related, but enough has been said to
show how full of life and progress is
53
this most ancient and imposing of all
sciences.
A minor, though very important,
influence in the progress of astronomy
has been the provision, by the expendi
ture of great wealth in America, of
great telescopes and equipments.
In 1877 Sir George Darwin started
a line of mathematical research which
has been very fruitful and is of great
future promise for astronomy. As
recently as April, 1906, at the Royal
Astronomical Society, two important
papers were read—one by Mr. Cowell
and the other by Mr. Stratton—which
have their roots in Sir George Darwin’s
work. The former was led to suggest
that the day is lengthening ten times
as rapidly as had been supposed, and
the latter showed that in all probability
the planets had all turned upside down
since their birth.
And yet M. Brunetiere and his
friends wish us to believe that science
is bankrupt and has no new things in
store for humanity.
Geology.—In the field of geological
research the main feature in the past
twenty-five years has been the increas
ing acceptance of the evolutionary as
contrasted with the uniformitarian
view of geological phenomena. The
great work of Suess, Das Antlitz der
Erde, is undoubtedly the most import
ant contribution to physical geology
within the period. The first volume
appeared in 1885, and the impetus
which it has given to the science may
be judged of by the epithet applied to
the views for which Suess is respon
sible—“the New Geology.”
Suess
attempts to trace the orderly sequence
of the principal changes in the earth’s
crust since it first began to form. He
�Fig. 16.
Fig 13.—The Freshwater Jelly-fish of Regent’s Park (Lvmnocodium Sowerbu), magnified five times
linear It was discovered in the tropical lily tank of the Botanical Gardens in June, 1880, and swarmed
in great numbers year after year—then suddenly disappeared. It has since been found m similar tang
in Sheffield, Lyons, and Munich. Only male specimens were discovered, and the native home or tne
wonderful visitor is still unknown.
, ,
. .. . - ,
Big. 14.—The minute polyp attached to the rootlets of water plants—from which the jeiiy-nsn
Limnocodi/um was found to be “ budded off.”
.
,.
rn
Fig. 15.—One of the peculiar sense-organs from the edge of the swimming disc of Limnocodium. O,
cavity of capsule ; EC, ectoderm; EN, endoderm. Sense organs of identical structure are found m the
Freshwater Jelly-fish of Lake Tanganyika and in no other jelly-fish.
five
Fig. 16.—The Freshwater Jelly-fish of Lake Tanganyika (Lmnocmda Tangawyicae), magnified fa
times linear. Since its discovery in Tanganyika it has been found also in the Lake Victoria Nyanza and
pools in the Upper Niger basin.
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
Strongly opposes the old theory of
elevation, and accounts for the move
ments as due to differential collapse
of the crust, accompanied by folding
due to tangential stress. Among
special results gained by geologists in
the period we survey may be cited
new views as to the origin of the
crystalline schists, favouring a return
to something like the hypogene origin
advocated by Lyell; the facts as to
deep-sea deposits, now in course of
formation, embodied in the “ Challen
ger ” reports on that subject; the
increasing discrimination and tracking
of those minor divisions of strata
called “ zones the assignment of the
Olenellus fauna of Cambrian age to a
position earlier than that of the Paradoxides fauna ; the discovery of Eadiolaria in palaeozoic rocks by special
methods of examination, and the
recognition of Graptolites as indices
of geological horizons in lower palaeo
zoic beds. Glacially eroded rocks in
boulder-clays of permo-carboniferous
age have been recognised in many
parts of the world (e.g., Australia and
South Africa), and thus the view put
forward by W. T. Blanford as to the
occurrence of the same phenomena in
conglomerates of this age in India is
confirmed. Eozoon is finally aban
doned as owing its structure to an
organism. The oldest fossiliferous
beds known to us are still far from
the beginning of life. They contain a
highly developed and varied animal
fauna—and something like the whole
of the older moiety of rocks of aqueous
origin have failed as yet to present us
with any remains of the animals or
plants which must have inhabited the
seas which deposited them. The boring
55
of a coral reef initiated by Professor
Sollas at the Nottingham meeting of
the British Association in 1893 has
been successfully carried out, and a
depth of l,114i feet reached. Inform
ation of great value to geologists was
thus obtained.
Animal and Vegetable Morphography.
—Were I to attempt to give an account
of the new kinds of animals and plants
discovered since 1881, I should have
to offer a bare catalogue, for space
would not allow me to explain the
interest attaching to each. Explorers
have been busy in all parts of the
world — in Central Africa, in the
Antarctic, in remote parts of China,
in Patagonia and Australia, and on
the floor of the ocean, as well as in
caverns, on mountain tops, and in
great lakes and rivers. We have
learnt much that is new as to distri
bution ; countless new forms have
been discovered, and careful anatomical
and microscopical study conducted on
specimens sent home to our labora
tories. I cannot refrain from calling
to mind the discovery of the eggs of
the Australian duck-mole and spiny
ant-eater; the fresh-water jelly-fish
(Eigs. 13, 14, and 15) of Eegent’s
Park, the African lakes (Eig. 16), and
the Delaware Eiver; the marsupial
mole of Central Australia; the okapi
(Figs. 17, 18, and 19); the breeding
and transformations of the common
eel (Fig. 20); the young and adult of
the mud-fishes of Australia, Africa,
and South America ; the fishes of the
Nile and Congo ; the gill-bearing earth
worms and mud-worms; the various
forms of the caterpillar-like Peripatus ;
strange deep-sea fishes, polyps, and
sponges.
D
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
56
Fig. 17.
1’lG. 18.
Fig. 19.
Fig. 17. The giraffe-like animal called the Okapi, discovered by Sir Harry Johnston in the Congo
forest. Photograph of the skin of a female sent home by him in 1901, and now mounted and exhibited in
the Natural History Museum.
m
Fig. 18.—Two “ bandoliers " cut by the natives from the striped part of the skin (the haunches) and at
first supposed t(> be bits of the hide of a new kind of zebra. These were sent home by Sir Hk?ry Johnston
in iyuu.
.. FIG-19--Photograph of the skull of a male Okapi-showing the paired boney horn-cores-similar to
those of the giraffe, but connected with the frontal bones and not with the parietals as the horn-cores of
giraffes are.
°
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
57
The main result of a good deal of by very simple, remote, and not by
such investigation is measured by our proximate, ancestors with one another
increased knowledge of the pedigree of and with the ancestors of vertebrates.
The origin of the limbs of verte
organisms, in fact what used to be
called “ classification.” The anatomi brates is now generally agreed to be
cal study by the Australian professors correctly indicated in the ThatcherHill and Wilson of the
teeth and the foetus of the
Australian group of pouched
mammals—the marsupials
—has entirely upset pre
vious notions, to the effect
that these are a primitive
group, and has shown that
their possession of only one
replacing tooth is a reten
tion of one out of many
such teeth (the germs of
which are present), as in
placental mammals; and
further that many of these
marsupials have the nour
ishing outgrowth of the
foetus called the placenta
fairly well developed, so
that they must be regarded
as a degenerate side-branch
Fig. 20.
of the placental mammals,
Drawings
of the young of the
and not as primitive fore common Eelby Professor Grassi, of Rome, the natural size. The
and its metamorphosis. All of
transparent glass-like creature—
runners of that dominant uppermost figure represents a find” to marine naturalists, ana
which was known as a rare “
received the name Leptocephalus. Really it lives in vast
series.
numbers in great depths of the sea—five hundred fathoms ana
Speculations as to the more. It is hatched here from the eggs of the common eel
which descends from the ponds, lakes, and rivers of Europe in
ancestral connection of the order to breed in these great depths. The gradual change of the
Leptocephalus into a young eel or “ elver ” is shown, and was dis
great group of vertebrates covered by Grassi. The young eels leave the great depth of the
ocean and ascend the rivers in immense shoals of many hundred
with other great groups thousand individuals, and wriggle their way up banks and rocks
into the small streams and pools of the continent.
. ,
have been varied and in
The above figures were published by Professor Grassi in
November, 1896, in the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science,
genious ; but most natura edited by E. Ray Lankester, and sold by Churchill and Sons.
lists are now inclined to
the view that it is a mistake to Mivart-Balfour theory, to the effect
assume any such connection in the that they are derived from a pair of
case of vertebrates of a more definite continuous lateral fins, in fish-like
character than we admit in the case of ancestors, similar in every way to the
starfishes, shell-fish, and insects. All continuous median dorsal fin of fishes.
The discovery of the formation of
these groups are ultimately connected
�58
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
true spermatozoa by simple unicellular
When we come to the results of the
animals of the group Protozoa is a digging out and study of extinct plants
startling thing, for it had always been and animals, the most remarkable
supposed that these peculiar repro results of all in regard to the affini
ductive elements were only formed by ties and pedigree of organisms have
multicellular organisms (Figs. 21, 22, been obtained. Among plants the
and 23). They have been discovered transition between cryptogams and
in some of the gregarina-like animal phanerogams has been practically
cules, the Coccidia, and also in the bridged over by the discovery that
blood-parasites.
certain fern-like plants of the Coal
Among plants one of the most im Measures — the Cycadofilices — sup
portant discoveries relates to these posed to be true ferns, are really seed
same reproductive elements, the sper bearing plants, and not ferns at all,
matozoa, which by botanists are called but phanerogams of a primitive type,
antherozoids. A great difference be allied to the cycads and gymnosperms.
tween the whole higher series of plants, They have been re-christened Pterithe flowering plants or phanerogams, dosperms by Scott, who, together with
and the cryptogams or lower plants, F. Oliver and Seward, has been the
including ferns, mosses, and algae, was chief discoverer in this most interesting
held to be that the latter produce field.
vibratile spermatozoa like those of
By their fossil remains whole series
animals, which swim in liquid and of new genera of extinct mammals
fertilise the motionless egg-cell of the have been traced through the tertiary
plant. Two Japanese botanists (and strata of North America, and their
the origin of this discovery from Japan, genetic connections established; and
from the University of Tokio, in itself from yet older strata of the same pro
marks an era in the history of science), lific source we have almost complete
Hirase and Ikeno, astonished the knowledge of several genera of huge
botanical world fifteen years ago by extinct Dinosauria of great variety of
showing that motile antherozoids or form and habit (Fig. 25).
spermatozoa are produced by two
The discoveries by Seeley at the
gymnosperms, the ging-ko tree (or Cape, and by Amalitzky in North
Salisburya) and the cycads (Fig. 24). Russia of identical genera of Triassic
The pollen-tube, which is the fertilis reptiles, which in many respects re
ing agent in all other phanerogams, semble the Mammalia and constitute
develops, in these cone-bearing trees, the group Theromorpha, is also a
beautiful motile spermatozoa, which prominent feature in the palseontology
swim in a cup of liquid provided for of the past twenty-five years (Fig. 26).
them in connection with the ovules. Nor must we forget the extraordinary
Thus a great distinction between Devonian and Silurian fishes discovered
phanerogams and cryptogams was and described by Professor Traquair
broken down, and the actual nature (Figs. 27 and 28). The most im
of the pollen-tube as a potential parent portant discovery of the kind of late
of spermatozoids demonstrated.
| years has been that of the Upper
�Fig.
21.
Fig.
23.
Fig. 24.
the normal male Sd;T»nd I fhX stages ^“the^^
Pt°Ulp Or °ctopus‘
is
UdFmg224-Pr^ 6t-b0Wfa female parasite with dermatozoa SroachingT
°a °U ltS SUrfaCe by
from the Lbtat^s
°n the SUrfaCe °f the unicellular parasite Coceidium oviforme,
in
°f the ™ice11^ Parasite EcMnospora found
Fig. 24. Spermatozoa (antlierozoicls) of Cvccls TcvolutcL qaah frnm fha
-p
.PermataPo« I.sph,ri„i.c™g.spl„l tocd
�60
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
Eocene and Miocene mammals of the
Egyptian Eayum, excavated by the
Egyptian Geological Survey and by
Dr. Andrews, of the Natural History
Museum, who has described and figured
which was abundant in Miocene and
Pliocene times in Europe and Asia,
and in still later times in America,
and survives at the present day in its
representatives the African and Indian
the remains. They include a huge
four-horned animal, as big as a rhino
ceros, but quite peculiar in its char
acters—the Arisinoitherium—and the
ancestors of the elephants, a group
elephant. One of the European ex
tinct elephants—the Tetrabelodon—
had, we have long known, an im
mensely long lower jaw with large
chisel-shaped terminal teeth. It had
�THE ADVANCE OE SCIENCE
61
Fig. 26.
Fig. 27.
Fig. 26.—Photograph of the skeleton of a large carnivorous Reptile from Triassic strata in North
Russia, discovered by Prof. Amalitzky and named by him Inostransevia. The head alone is two feet in
length.
Fig, 27.—Photographs of completed models of the Devonian fish Drepanaspis, from Devonian slates
of North Germany, worked out by Professor Traquair. The models are in the Natural History Museum,
London.
Fig. 28.—The oldest fossil fish known—discovered in the Upper Silurian strata of Scotland, and
named BirJcenia by Professor Traquair.
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THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
been suggested by me that the modern mastodon, in which there are a long,
elephant’s trunk must have been de powerful jaw, an elongated faceBand
rived from the soft upper jaw and an increased number of molar teeth
nasal area, which rested on this elon (see Figs. 29 and 30) ; the second,
gated lower jaw, by the shortening (in Meritlzerium (Fig. 31), an animal with
the course of natural selection and a rhinoceros-like head, comparatively
modification by descent) of this long minute tusks, and a well-developed
lower jaw, to the present small dimen- complement of incisor, canine, and
Fig.
29.
Photograph of a complete model of the skull and lower jaw of the ancestral elephant, PaUzomastodon, discovered by Dr. Andrews in the Upper Eocene of the Fayum Desert, Egypt, and modelled
and restored under his direction in the Natural History Museum, London. The. comparatively short
trunk or snout rested on the broad front teeth of the long lower jaw. The face is elongated, and the
cheek-teeth are numerous.
sions of the elephant’s lower jaw, and
the consequent down-dropping of the
unshortened upper jaw and lips, which
thus became the proboscis.
Dr.
Andrews has described from Egypt
and placed in the Museum in London
specimens of the two new genera of
elephant-like animals — one Palao-
molar teeth, like a typical ungulate
mammal.
Undoubtedly we have in
these two forms the indications of
the steps by which the elephants b*fe
been evolved from ordinary-looking pig
like creatures of moderate size, devoid
of trunk or tusks. Other remains
belonging to this great mid-African
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
63
Eocene fauna indicate that not and many other new mammals and
only the elephants, but the Sirenia reptiles.
Another great area of exploration
(the dugong and manatee), took
Fig. 30.
Photograph of the lower face of the skull of a specimen of Palaomastoclon brought fr°m Egn>t in
April, 1906, by Dr. Andrews, and now in the Natural History Museum, London. The six charactenst 0
cheek-teeth on each side, and the pair of sabre-like tusks in front, are well seen.
their origin in this area. Amongst
them are also gigantic forms of
Hyrax, like the little Syrian coney
and source of new things has been the
southern part of Argentina and Pata
gonia, where Ameghino, Moreno, and
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THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
Scott of Princeton have brought to
light a wonderful series of extinct ant
eaters, armadilloes, huge sloths, and
strange ungulates, reaching back into
early Tertiary times. But most re
Cruz strata, considered to be of early
Tertiary date, of remains of a huge
horned tortoise which is generically
identical with one found fossil in the
Australian area of later date, and
known as Miolania. In
the same wonderful area
we have the discovery in
a cave of the fresh bones,
hairy skin, and dung of
animals supposed to be
extinct—viz., the giant
sloth, Mylodon, and the
peculiar horse, Onohi/ppidium.
These remains
seem to belong to survivors from the last sub
mergence of this strangely
mobile land-surface, and
it is not improbable that
some individuals of this
“extinct” fauna are still
living in Patagonia. The
region is still unexplored,
and those who set out to
examine it have, by some
strange fatality, hitherto
failed to carry out the
professed purpose of their
expeditions.
I cannot quit this im
mense field of gathered
Fig. 31.
fact and growing generali
Drawing of the skull and lower jaw of the Meritherium, dissation without alluding to
cov eied by Dr. Andrews in the Upper Eocene of the Fayuni Desert,
lhe shape of the skull and propoi’tions of face and jaw are like
those of an ordinary hoofed mammal such as the pig; but the the study of animal em
cheek-teeth are similar to those of the Mastodon, and whilst the
bryology and the germfull complement of teeth is present in the front of the upper jaw
we can distinguish the big tusk-like incisor which alone survives on, layer theory, which has to
each side in Palazomastodon, Mastodon, and the elephants, as the
great pan* of tusks,
some extent been superseded by the study of em
markable has been the discovery in bryonic cell-lineage, so well pursued
this area of remains which indicate a by some American microscopists. The
former connection with the Australian great generalisation of the study of the
land surface. This connection is sug germ-layers and their formation seems
gested by the discovery in the Santa to be now firmly established—namely,
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
65
that the earliest multicellular animals morphology, I must apologise for my
were possessed of one structural cavity, inability to give space to a considera
the enteron, surrounded by a double tion of the growing and important
layer of cells, the ectoderm and endo science of anthropology, which ranges
derm. These Enteroccela or Ccelentera from the history of modern races and
gave rise to forms having a second of human institutions and language to
great body-cavity, the coelom, which the earliest prehistoric bones and im
originated not as a split between the plements. Let me therefore- note here
two layers, as was supposed twenty- the discovery of the cranial dome of
five years ago by Haeckel and Gegen- Pithecanthropus in a river gravel in
baur and their pupils, but by a pouch Java—undoubtedly the most ape-like
ing of the enteron to form one or more of human remains, and of great age
cavities in which the reproductive cells (see Bigs. 1 and 2); and, further, the
should develop—pouchings which be Eoliths of Prestwich (see Figs. 3 and
came nipped off from the cavity of 4), in the human authorship of which
their origin, and formed thus the inde I am inclined to believe, though I
pendent coelom. The animals so pro should be sorry to say the same of all
vided are the Ccelomoccela Us opposed the broken flints to which the name
to the Enterocoela), and comprise all “ Eolith ” has been applied. The sys
animals above the polyps, jelly-fish, tematic investigation and record of
corals, and sea-anemones. It has been savage races have taken on a new and
established in these twenty-five years scientific character. Such work as
that the coelom is a definite structural Baldwin Spencer’s and Haddon’s in
unit of the higher groups, and that Australasia furnishes examples of what
outgrowths from it to the exterior is being done in this way.
Physiology of Plants and Animals.
(coelomoducts) form the genital pas
—Since I have not space to do more
sages, and may become renal excretory
organs also. The vascular system has than pick out the most important
not, as it was formerly supposed to advances in each subject for brief
have, any derivative connection with mention, I must signalise, in regard
the coelom, but is independent of it, to the physiology of plants, the better
in origin and development, as also are understanding of the function of leaf
the primitive and superficial renal green or chlorophyll due to Pringsheim
tubes known as nephridia. These and to the Russian Timiriaseff, the
general statements seem to me to new facts as to the activity of stomata
cover the most important advance in in transpiration discovered by Horace
the general morphology of animals Brown, and the fixation of free nitrogen
which we owe to embryological re by living organisms in the soil and by
search in the past quarter of a cen organisms {Bacillus radicola) parasitic
in the rootlets of leguminous plants
tury.1
Before leaving the subject of animal (see Fig. 32), which thus benefit by a
supply of nitrogenous compounds which
1 See the Introduction to Part II. of A
Treatise on Zoology. Edited by E. Ray they can assimilate.
Great progress in the knowledge of
Lankester (London : A. & G. Black).
�66
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
the chemistry of the living cells or
protoplasm of both plants and animals
has been made by the discovery of the
fact that ferments or enzymes are not
only secreted externally by cells, but
exist active and preformed inside cells.
Buchner’s final conquest of the secret
Fig. 32.
Bacillus radicola, the parasite which infests the
roots of leguminous plants and causes the growth
of nodules whilst assisting the plant in the assimila
tion of nitrogen : a nodule of the roots of the com
mon Lupine, natural size; b longitudinal section
through a Lupine root and nodule ; c a single cell
from a Lupine nodule showing the bacteria or
bacilli as black particles in the protoplasm,
magnified 600 diameters; d bacilli from the root
nodule of the Lupine; e triangular forms of the
bacillus from the root nodules of the Vetch ; f oval
forms from the root nodules of the Lupine; def
are magnified 1,500 diameters.
of the yeast-cell by heroic mechanical
methods—the actual grinding to powder
of these already very minute bodies—
first established this, and now succes
sive discoveries of intracellular fer
ments have led to the conclusion that
it is probable that the cell respires by
means of a respiratory “ oxydase,”
builds up new compounds and destroys
existing ones, contracts and accom
plishes its own internal life by fer
ments. Life thus (from the chemical
point of view) becomes a chain of
ferment actions. Another most signi
ficant advance in animal physiology
has been the sequel (as it were) of
Bernard’s discovery of the formation
of glycogen in the liver, a substance
not to be excreted, but to be taken up
by the blood and lymph, and in many
ways more important than the more
obvious formation of bile, which is
thrown out of the gland into the
alimentary canal. It has been dis
covered that many glands, such as the
kidney and pancreas and the ductless
glands, the suprarenals, thyroid, and
others, secrete indispensable products
into the blood and lymph. Hence
myxoedema, exophthalmic goitre, Addi
son’s disease, and other disorders have
been traced to a deficiency or excess of
internal secretions from glands formerly
regarded as interesting but unimportant
vestigial structures. From these glands
have in consequence been extracted
remarkable substances on which their
peculiar activity depends. From the
suprarenals a substance has been
extracted which causes activity of all
those structures which the sympathetic
nerve-system can excite to action ; the
thyroid yields a substance which
influences the growth of the skin,
hair, bones, etc.; the pituitary gland,
an extract which is a specific urinary
stimulant. Quite lately the mam
malian ovary has been shown by
Starling to yield a secretion which
influences the'state of nutrition of the
uterus and mammae. A great deal
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
more might be said here on topics
such as these — topics of almost
infinite importance; but the fact is
that the mere enumeration of the
most important lines of progress in
any one science would occupy many
pages.
Nerve - physiology has made im
mensely important advances. There
is now good evidence that all excita
tion of one group of nerve-centres is
accompanied by the concurrent inhibi
tion of a whole series of groups of
other centres, whose activity might
interfere with that of the group excited
to action. In a simple reflex flexure
of the knee the motor-neurones to the
flexor muscles are excited; but con
currently the motor-neurones to the
extensor muscles are thrown into a
state of inhibition, and so equally with
all the varied excitations of the nervous
system controlling the movements and
activities of the entire body.
The discovery of the continuity of
the protoplasm through the walls of
the vegetable cells by means of con
necting canals and threads (see Pig. 33)
is one of the most startling facts dis
covered in connection with plant
structure, since it was held twenty
years ago that a fundamental distinc
tion between animal and vegetable
structure consisted in the boxing-up
or encasement of each vegetable cell
unit in a case of cellulose, whereas
animal cells were not so imprisoned,
but freely communicated with one
another. It perhaps is on this
account the less surprising that lately
something like sense-organs have been
discovered on the roots, stems, and
leaves of plants, which, like the
otocysts of some animals, appear to
67
be really “ statocytes,” and to exert a
varying pressure according to the
relations of these parts of the plant
to gravity. There is apparently some
thing resembling a perception of the
incidence of gravity in plants which
reacts on irritable tissues, and is the
explanation of the phenomena of
geotropism. These results have grown
out of the observations of Charles
Darwin, followed by those of F. Dar
win, Haberlandt, and Nemec.
A few words must be said here as
to the progress of our knowledge of
The continuity of the protoplasm of neighbour
ing vegetable cells, by means of threads 'which
perforate the cell-walls. Drawing (after Gardiner)
of cells from the pulvinus of Robinia.
cell-substance, and what used to be
called the protoplasm question. We
do not now regard protoplasm as a
chemical expression, but, in accordance
with von Mohl’s original use of the
word, as a structure which holds in its
meshes many and very varied chemical
bodies of great complexity. Within
these twenty-five years the “ centrosome” of the cell - protoplasm has
been discovered (see Fig. 34), and a
great deal has been learnt as to the
structure of the nucleus and its
remarkable stain-taking bands, the
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
68
chromosomes. We now know that
these bands are of definite fixed
number, varying in different species
of plants and animals, and that they
are halved in number in the repro
ductive elements—the spermatozoid
and the ovum—so that on union of
these two to form the fertilised ovum
(the parent cell of all the tissues), the
proper specific number is attained (see
new nucleus —in fact, can do very
little but exhibit irritability. I am
inclined to agree with those who hold
that there is not sufficient evidence
that any organism exists at the
present time which has not both
protoplasm and nucleus; in fact, that
the simplest form of life at present
existing is a highly complicated struc
ture—a nucleated cell. 'That does not
Attraction-sphere enclosing two centrosomes.
Plastids lying in the
cytoplasm.
rpiasmosome or
true nucleolus.
Chromatin
network.
Nucleus
Linin-network.
k
Karyosome or
net-knot.
Vacuole.
Lifeless bodies (meta
plasm) suspended in
the cytoplasmic reticu
lum.
Fig.
34.
Diagrammatic representation of the structures present in a typical cell (after Wilson). Note the two
centrosomes, sometimes single.
Figs. 35 and 36). It has been pretty
clearly made out by cutting up large
living cells—unicellular animals—that
the body of the cell alone, without the
nucleus, can do very little but move
and maintain for a time its chemical
status. But it is the nucleus which
directs and determines all definite
growth, movement, secretion, and
reproduction. The simple protoplasm,
deprived of its nucleus, cannot form a
imply that simpler forms of living
matter have not preceded those which
we know. We must assume that
something more simple and homo
geneous than the cell, with its
differentiated cell-body or protoplasm,
and its cell kernel or nucleus, has at
one time existed. But the various
supposed instances of the survival to
the present day of such simple living
things—described by Haeckel and
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
69
others—have one by one yielded to been seriously revived within these
improved methods of microscopic twenty-five years. Our greater know
examination and proved to be dif- ledge of minute forms of life, and the
c.
Fig.
35.—The
Number oe the Chromosomes.
a Cell of the asexual generation of the cryptogam Pellia epiphylla: the nucleus is about to divide
a polar ray-formation is present at each end of the spindle-shaped nucleus, the chromosomes have
divided into two horizontal groups each of sixteen pieces: sixteen is the number of the chromosomes of
the ordinary tissue cells of Pellia. b Cell of the sexual generation of the same plant (PeZZia) in the
same phase of division, but with the reduced number of chromosomes—namely, eight m each half of
the dividing nucleus. The completed cells of the sexual generation have only eight chromosomes, c,
Somatic or tissue-cell of Salamander showing twenty-four V-shaped chromosomes, each of which is
becoming longitudinally split as a preliminary to division, d Sperm-mother-cell from testis of Sala
mander showing the reduced number of chromosomes of the sexual cells—namely, twelve; each is split
longitudinally. (From original drawings by Professor Farmer and Mr. Moore.)
ferentiated into nuclear and extra- conditions under which they can sur
vive, as well as our improved micro
nuclear substance.
The question of “ spontaneous scopes and methods of experiment and
generation ” cannot be said to have observation, have made an end of the
�70
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
arguments and instances of supposed
abiogenesis. The accounts which have
been published of “ radiobes,” minute
bodies arising in fluids of organic
origin when radium salts have been
allowed to mix in quantities with such
fluids, are wanting in precision and
detail; but the microscopic particles
which appear in the circumstances
described seem to be of a nature
identical with the minute bodies well
known to microscopists and recognised
as crystals modified by a colloid
medium. They have been described
Further stage in the division of the sexual cell
drawn in Fig. 35 cl, showing the twelve chromo
somes of the two nuclei of the sperm-cells resulting
from the division (twelve instead of twenty-four).
by Rainey, Harting, and Ord, on
different occasions, many years ago.
They are not devoid of interest, but
cannot be considered as having any
new bearing on the origin of living
matter.
Psychology.—I have given a special
heading to this subject because its
emergence as a definite line of experi
mental research seems to me one of
the most important features in the
progress of science in the past quarter
of a century. Thirty-five years ago
we were all delighted by Fechner’s
psycho-physical law; and at Leipzig
I, with others of my day, studied it
experimentally in the physiological
laboratory of that great teacher Carl
Ludwig. The physiological methods
of measurement (which are the phy
sical ones) have been more and more
widely, and with guiding intelligence
and ingenuity, applied since those
days to the study of the 'activities of
the complex organs of the nervous
system which are concerned with
“mind,” or psychic phenomena.
Whilst some enthusiasts have been
eagerly collecting ghost-stories and
records of human illusion and fancy
the serious experimental investigation
of the human mind, and its forerunner
the animal mind, has been quietly but
steadily proceeding in truly scientific
channels. The science is still in an
early phase—that of the collection of
accurate observations and measure
ments—awaiting the development of
great guiding hypotheses and theories.
But much has been done ; and it is a
matter of gratification to Oxford men
that through the liberality of the dis
tinguished electrician Mr. Henry
Wilde, F.R.S., a lectureship of Ex
perimental Psychology has been
founded in the University of Oxford,
where the older studies of Mental and
Moral Philosophy, Logic, and Meta
physics have so strong a hold, and
have so well prepared the ground for
the new experimental development.
The German investigators W. Wundt,
G. E. Muller, C. Stumpf, Ebbinghaus,
and Munsterberg have been prominent
in introducing laboratory methods,
and have determined such matters as
the elementary laws of association
and memory, and the perceptions of
musical tones and their relations.
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
71
The work of Goldschneider on the mus- doubtedly furnish the necessary scien
'
cular sense, and that of von Frey on the tific basis of the art of education, and
cutaneous sensations, are further ex psychology will hold the same relation
to that art as physiology does to the
amples of what is being done.
The difficult and extremely im art of medicine and hygiene.
There can be little doubt, moreover,
portant line of investigation first
of the valuable interaction of the study
scientifically treated by Braid under
the name “ Hypnotism” has been of physical psychology and the theories
greatly developed by the French school, of the origin of structural character by
especially by Charcot. The experi natural selection. The relation of the
mental investigation of suggestion, human mind to the mind of animals,
and the pathology of dual conscious and the gradual development of both,
ness and such exceptional conditions form a subject full of rich stores of
of the mind, has been greatly advanced new material, yielding conclusions of
the highest importance, which has not
by French observers.
The older work of Ferrier and Hitzig yet been satisfactorily approached.
I am glad to be able to give wider
on the functions of the parts of the
publicity here to some conclusions
brain has been carried further by Goltz
and Munk in Germany, and by Schafer, which I communicated to the Jubilee
Horsley, and Sherrington in England. volume of the Soci6t& de Biologic
The most important general advance of Paris in 1899. I there discussed
seems to be the recognition that the the significance of the great increase
mind of the human adult is a social in the size of the cerebral hemispheres
product; that it can only be under in recent, as compared with Eocene,
stood in relation with the special en mammals (see Fig. 5), and in Man as
vironment in which it develops, and compared with apes, and came to the
with which it is in perpetual inter conclusion that “ the power of building
action. Professor Baldwin, of Prince up appropriate cerebral mechanism in
ton, has done important work on this response to individual experience,” or
subject. Closely allied is the study what may be called educability, is
of what is called “ the psychology of the quality which characterises the
groups,” the laws of mental action larger cerebrum, and is that which
of the individual as modified by his has led to its selection, survival, and
membership of some form of society. further increase in volume. The bear
French authors have done valuable ing of this conception upon questions
of fundamental importance in what
work here.
These two developments of psy has been called “ genetic psychology ”
chology are destined to provide the is sketched as follows :—
“ The character which we describe
indispensable psychological basis for
Social Science, and for the anthro as ‘educability’ can be transmitted;
pological investigation of mental it is a congenital character. But the
results of education can not be transphenomena.
, mitted. In each generation they have
Hereafter, the well-ascertained laws
of experimental psychology will un to be acquired afresh. With increased
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THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
educability ’ they are more readily
acquired, and a larger variety of them.
On the other hand, the nerve-mechan
isms of instinct are transmitted, and
owe their inferiority, as compared with
the results of education, to the very
fact that they are not acquired by the
individual in relation to his particular
needs, but have arisen by selection of
congenital variation in a long series of
preceding generations.”
To a large extent, the two series
of brain-mechanisms, the ‘ instinctive ’
and the ‘ individually acquired,’ are in
opposition to one another. Congenital
brain-mechanisms may prevent the
education of the brain and the develop
ment of new mechanisms specially
fitted to the special conditions of life.
To the educable animal the less there
is of specialised mechanism transmitted
by heredity the better. The loss of in
stinct is what permits and necessitates
the education of the receptive brain.”
We are thus led to the view that
it is hardly possible for a theory to be
further from the truth than that ex
pressed by George H. Lewes and
adopted by George Romanes—namely,
that instincts are due to ‘ lapsed ’ in
telligence. The fact is that there is
no community between the mechan
isms of instinct and the mechanisms
of intelligence, and that the latter are
later in the history of the development
of the brain than the former, and can
only develop in proportion as the former
become feeble and defective.”1
Darwinism.—Under the title “ Dar
winism ” it is convenient to designate
the various work of biologists tending
to establish, develop, or modify Mr.
Darwin’s great theory of the origin of
species. In looking back over twentyfive years, it seems to me that we
must say that the conclusions of
Darwin as to the origin of species by
the survival of selected races in the
struggle for existence are more firmly
established than ever — and this be
cause there have been many attempts
to gravely tamper with essential parts
of the fabric as he left it, and even to
substitute conceptions for those which
he endeavoured to establish, at vari
ance with his conclusions. These
attempts must, I think, be considered
as having failed. A great deal of
valuable work has been done in con
sequence ; for honest criticism, based
on observation and experiment, leads
to further investigation, and is the
legitimate and natural mode of in*
crease
of
scientific
knowledge.
Amongst the attempts to seriously
modify Darwin’s doctrine may be cited
that to assign a great and leading im
portance to Lamarck’s theory as to
the transmission by inheritance of
newly “acquired” characters, due
chiefly to American palaeontologists
and to the venerated defender of such
views, who has now closed his long
life of great work, Mr. Herbert Spencer;
that to attribute leading importance to
the action of physiological congruity
and incongruity in selective breeding,
which was put forward by another
able writer and naturalist who has
now passed from among us, Dr.
George Romanes; further, the views
of de Vries as to the discontinuity in
the origin of new species, supported
1 From the Jubilee volume of the Soc. de
by the valuable work of Mr. Bateson
Biol, of Paris, 1899. Reprinted in Nature,
Vol. LXI., 1900, pp. 624, 625.
on discontinuous variation ; and, lastly,
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73
the attempt to assign a great and convincing and valuable works on
general importance to the facts ascer Darwinism. He is still alive, and not
tained many years ago by the Abb6 merely well, but pursuing his work
Mendel as to the cross-breeding of with vigour and ability. It was chiefly
varieties and the frequent production through his researches on insects in
(in regard to certain characters in South America and the Malay Islands
certain cases) of pure strains rather that Mr. Wallace was led to the Dar
than of breeds combining the charac winian theory; and there is no doubt
ters of both parents. On the other that the study of insects, especially of
hand, we have the splendid series of butterflies, is still one of the most
observations and writings of August prolific fields in which new facts can
Weismann, who has, in the opinion of be gathered in support of Darwin and
the majority of those who study this new views on the subject tested.
subject, rendered the Lamarckian Prominent amongst naturalists in this
theory of the origin and transmission line of research has been and is Edward
of new characters altogether untenable, Poulton, of Oxford, who has handed
and has, besides, furnished a most on to the study of entomology through
instructive, if not finally conclusive, out the world the impetus of the Dar
theory or mechanical scheme of the winian theory. I must here also name
phenomena of Heredity in his book a writer who, though unknown in our
The Germ, - Plasm. Professor Karl laboratories and museums, seems to
Pearson and the late Professor Weldon me to have rendered very valuable
—the latter so early in life and so service in late years to the testing of
recently lost to us—have, with the Darwin’s doctrines and to the bringing
finest courage and enthusiasm in the of a great class of organic pheno
face of an enormous and difficult task, mena within the cognisance of those
determined to bring the facts of varia naturalists who are especially occupied
tion and heredity into the solid form with the problems of Variation and
of statistical statement, and have Heredity. I mean Dr. Archdall Reid,
organised, and largely advanced in, who has with keen logic made use of
this branch of investigation, which the immense accumulation of material
they have termed “ Biometrics.” which is in the hands of medical men,
Many naturalists throughout the and has pointed out the urgent im
world have made it the main object portance of increased use by Dar
of their collecting and breeding of in winian investigators of the facts as to
sects, birds, and plants to test Darwin’s the variation and heredity of that
generalisations and to expand the unique animal Man — unique in his
work of Wallace in the same direc abundance, his reproductive activity,
tion. A delightful fact in this survey and his power of assisting his investi
is that we find Mr. Alfred Russel gator by his own record. There are
Wallace (who fifty years ago con more observations about the variation
ceived the same theory as that more and heredity of man and the condi
fully stated by Darwin) actively work tions attendant upon individual in
ing and publishing some of the most stances than with regard to any other
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THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
animal. Medical men need only to
grasp clearly the questions at present
under discussion in order to be able
to furnish with ease data absolutely
invaluable in quantity and quality.
Dr. Archdall Reid has in two original
books full of insight and new sugges
tions, The Present Evolution of Man
and Principles of Heredity, shown a
new path for investigators to follow.
There are still some philosophers
and a few naturalists who accept
Lamarck’s theory of organic evolution
by the transmission of what he called
les changements acquis.” I use the
term “ acquired ” without prejudice in
the sense given to that word by
Lamarck himself. It is of primary
importance that those who follow this
controversy should clearly understand
what Lamarck pointed to by this word
u acquired.” Utter confusion and
absurdity have resulted from a mis
understanding on this subject by some
writers who deliberately call newly
appearing congenital characters “ ac
quired ” or “ acquisitions.”
[It is desirable, owing to the constant
misunderstandings on the subject, that
a word should be added here as to the
production of congenital variations by
changed or novel conditions which act
upon the parent’s body, and so upon the
germs within it. That such effects
are produced was one of Darwin’s
main contentions, in support of which
he produced important evidence. Yet
many persons plunge into the question
as to whether Lamarck’s theory of
the transmission of acquired characters,
or, on the other hand, Darwin’s theory
of the natural selection and transmis
sion of congenital variations, is true,
without knowing what has been sup
posed, proved, and published in these
matters.
No one when opposing
Lamarck ever denies that important,
even essential, effects are produced by
agencies which act upon the parental
body. Yet, every now and then, the
fact that they do—is triumphantly an
nounced as something new by persons
who imagine themselves to be believers
in Lamarck. "What!” they say, “you
declare that the effect of agencies acting
on the parent’s body cannot influence
the offspring ! Look here ! ” The state
of mind of these persons is a result
of superficial acquaintance with the
discussion and refusal to read the
actual statements made by Darwin
and by Lamarck.
Lamarck’s contention was that the
identical changes caused in the struc
ture of an individual animal or plant
by the action upon it of a novel
environment—such as increase of a
part by use or decrease by disuse, as
well as other responses of an adaptive
character—are transmitted by genera
tion to its offspring, and continue to
appear in successive generations derived
from that offspring, even when the
cause which set up the original modi
fication of structure has ceased to act.
The direct adaptation of the structure
of such individuals to new environ
ment was supposed by Lamarck to
become fixed, and thenceforth trans*
mitted by heredity. What may be
called a character superimposed on
individuals, during their individual life
as a direct reaction and adaptation to
a new external influence or agency,
was held by Lamarck to become
suddenly a thing of deeper quality, to
be passed on in all its details by the
germ to a new generation. On the
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
other hand, Darwin, whilst denying
that such inheritance of the adapta
tion of an organ, arising from the
action upon such organ of new condi
tions, was usual or capable of account
ing for the gradual development of
new specific forms, did categorically
state that he attributed the origin of
congenital variations (by the natural
selection or survival of which he
held that new species originate) to the
action or influence of changed condi
tions upon the parental body, and
through it upon the reproductive germs.
The great and fundamental differ
ence between the result of changed
conditions formulated by Darwin
and that formulated by Lamarck
is that Darwin showed that the
result of changed conditions is not
an adaptive change of the shape or
structure of the parental organism or
of its offspring—fitting it to meet the
particular change of conditions which
induced the change—but a disturbance,
an arbitrary alteration (often very
minute) in the germs within the body
of the affected organism. So that the
young which it produces show in
creased “ variation ” or departure from
the exact model of the parental form
in directions or ways having no signi
ficance so far as the nature of the
change of conditions is concerned.
Darwin’s statements on this matter
are often ignored, and it is erroneously
declared that he does not account for
the origin of variations. No doubt
there is more to be ascertained in the
direction which Darwin indicated. I
will quote here a passage taken from
Mr. Darwin’s eleventh edition of his
Origin of Species, 1872, pp. 7-8, which
presents his view on this matter. He
15
says : “ With respect to what I have
called the indirect action of changed
conditions—namely, through the repro
ductive system being affected—we may
infer that variability is thus induced
partly from the fact of this system
being extremely sensitive to any change
in the conditions, and partly from the
similarity (as Kolreuter and others
have remarked) between the varia
bility which follows from the crossing
of distinct species and that which
may be observed with plants and
animals when reared under new or
unnatural conditions. Many facts
clearly show how eminently suscep
tible the reproductive system is to
very slight changes in the surrounding
conditions.”
Darwin goes on to
summarise some of these facts, refer
ring for details to his book on The
Variation of Plants and Animals under
Domestication. He then proceeds:
“ Some naturalists have maintained
that all variations are connected with
the act of sexual reproduction; but
this is certainly an error, for I have
given in another work a long list of
‘ sporting plants,’ as they are called by
gardeners—that is, of plants which
have suddenly produced a single bud
with a new and sometimes widely
different character from that of the
other buds on the same plant.” He
concludes with reference to the relation
between the conditions which cause
variation and the particular result
ensuing that ‘ we clearly see that the
nature of the conditions is of subor
dinate importance, in comparison with
the nature of the organism, in deter
mining each particular form of varia
tion—perhaps not of more importance
than has the nature of the spark by
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TSE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
which a mass of combustible matter
is ignited in determining the nature of
the flames.” The effect of external
agencies in producing curiously definite
variations of buds or of offspring has
by other writers been compared (merely
in respect of their non-significance and
want of relation to the nature of the
condition which starts them) to the
production of a new pattern in a
kaleidoscope by the external agency
of a slight jar or tap on the apparatus.
Such variations are truly enough
responses to external changes, but
they have no qualitative or even
quantitative relation to the external
change.
They may therefore be
described as “ non-significant ” in re
lation to the external changes which
set them going, and are totally differ
ent from the adaptive changes of the
form or structure of a parental body
which have a direct correspondence with
the nature and amount of the novel
condition or stimulus, and were supposed
by Lamarck to be transmitted as such
from the parent to its offspring.]
The attempt to resuscitate Lamarck’s
views on the inheritance of acquired
characters has been met not only by
the demand for the production of
experimental proof that such inherit
ance takes place, which has never
been produced, but on Weismann’s
part by a demonstration that the
reproductive cells of organisms are, in
very many cases, developed and set
aside from the rest of the tissues at
so early a period that it is extremely
improbable that changes brought about
in those other tissues by unaccustomed
incident forces can be specifically com
municated to the germ-cells so as to
make their appearance in the offspring
by heredity. Apart from this, I have
drawn attention to the fact that
Lamarck’s first and second laws (as
he terms them) of heredity are con
tradictory the one of the other, and
therefore may be dismissed. In 1894
I wrote:—
Normal conditions of environment
have for many thousands of generations
moulded the individuals of a given
species of organism, and determined as
each individual developed and grew
‘responsive’ quantities in its parts
(characters); yet, as Lamarck tells us,
and as we know, there is in every
individual born a potentiality wThich
has not been extinguished. Change
the normal conditions of the species
in the case of a young individual taken
to-day from the site where for thou
sands of generations its ancestors have
responded in a perfectly defined way
to the normal and defined conditions
of environment; reduce the daily or
the seasonal amount of solar radiation
to which the individual is exposed; or
remove the aqueous vapour from the
atmosphere; or alter the chemical
composition of the pabulum accessible ;
or force the individual to previously
unaccustomed muscular effort, or to
new pressures and strains; and (as
Lamarck bids us observe), in spite of
all the long-continued response to the
earlier normal specific conditions, the
innate congenital potentiality shows
itself. The individual under the new
quantities of environing agencies shows
new responsive quantities in those
parts of its structure concerned, new
or acquired characters.
“ So far, so good. What Lamarck
next asks us to accept, as his ‘ second
law,’ seems not only to lack the
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
support of experimental proof, but to
be inconsistent with what has just
preceded it. The new character, which
is ex hypothesi, as was the old char
acter (length, breadth, weight of a
part) which it has replaced, a response
to environment, a particular moulding
or manipulation by incident forces of
the potential congenital quality of the
race, is, according to Lamarck, all of a
sudden raised to extraordinary powers.
The new or freshly acquired character
is declared by Lamarck and his adher
ents to be capable of transmission by
generation; that is to say, it alters
the potential character of the species.
It is no longer a merely responsive or
reactive character, determined quanti
tatively by quantitative conditions of
the environment, but becomes fixed
and incorporated in the potential of
the race, so as to persist when other
quantitative external conditions are
substituted for those which originally
determined it. In opposition to
Lamarck, one must urge, in the first
place, that this thing has never been
shown experimentally to occur; and,
in the second place, that there is no
ground for holding its occurrence to
be probable, but, on the contrary,
strong reason for holding it to be
improbable. Since the old character
(length, breadth, weight) had not
become fixed and congenital after
many thousands of successive genera
tions of individuals had developed it
in response to environment, but gave
place to a new character when new
conditions operated on an individual
(Lamarck’s first law), why should we
suppose that the new character is
likely to become fixed after a much
shorter time of responsive existence,
77
or to escape the operation of the first
law? Clearly there is no reason (so
far as Lamarck’s statement goes) for
any such supposition, and the two
so-called laws of Lamarck are at
variance with one another.”
In its most condensed form my
argument has been stated thus by
Professor Poulton: Lamarck’s “ first
law assumes that a past history of
indefinite duration is powerless to
create a bias by which the present
can be controlled; while the second
assumes that the brief history of the
present can readily raise a bias to
control the future.”1
An important light is thrown on
some facts which seem at first sight
to favour the Lamarckian hypothesis
by the consideration that, though an
“acquired” character is not trans
mitted to offspring as the consequence
of the action of external agencies
determining the “ acquirement,” yet
the tendency to react exhibited by the
parent is transmitted, and if the ten
dency is exceptionally great a false
suggestion of a Lamarckian inheri
tance can readily result. This inheri
tance of “ variation in tendencies to
react ” has a wide application, and has
led me to coin the word “ educability,”
as mentioned in my remarks on
Psychology (p. 71).
The principle of physiological selec
tion advocated by the late Dr. Romanes
does not seem to have caused much
discussion, and has been unduly
neglected by subsequent writers. It
was ingenious, and was based on some
interesting observations, but has failed
to gain support.
1 Nature, Vol. LI., 1894, p. 127.
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THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
The observations of de Vries— application of them to the explanation
showing that in cultivated varieties of many difficult cases of the structure
of plants a new form will sometimes and distribution of organisms.
assert itself suddenly and attain a
Two general principles which Mr.
certain period of dominance, though Darwin fully recognised appear to me
not having been gradually brought to deserve more consideration and
into existence by a slow process of more general application to the his
selection—-have been considered by tory of species than he had time to
him, and by a good many other give to them, or than his followers
naturalists, as indicating the way in have accorded to them. The first is
which new species arise in Nature. the great principle of “ correlation of
The suggestion is a valuable one, if variation,” from which it follows that,
not very novel; but a great deal of whilst natural selection may be
observation will have to be made favouring some small and obscure
before it can be admitted as really change in an unseen group of cells
having a wide bearing upon the origin —such as digestive, pigmentary, or
of species. The same is true of those nervous cells, and that change a
interesting observations which were change of selective value—there may
first made by Mendel, and have been be, indeed often is, as we know, a
resuscitated and extended with great correlated or accompanying change in
labour and ingenuity by recent workers, a physiologically related part of far
especially in this country by Bateson greater magnitude and prominence to
and his pupils. If it should prove to the eye of the human onlooker. This
be true that varieties when crossed do accompanying or correlated character
not, in the course of eventual inter has no selective value, is not an
breeding, produce intermediate forms adaptation—is, in fact, a necessary
as hybrids, but that characters are but useless by-product. A list of a
either dominant or recessive, and that few cases of this kind was given by
breeds result having pure unmixed Darwin, but it is most desirable that
characters, we should, in proportion more should be established. For they
as the Mendelian law is shown to enable us to understand how it is that
apply to all tissues and organs and to specific characters, those seen and
a majority of organisms, have before noted on the surface by systematists,
us a very important and determining are not in most cases adaptations of
principle in all that relates to heredity selective value. They also open a
and variation. It remains, however, wide vista of incipient and useless
to be shown how far the Mendelian developments which may suddenly, in
phenomenon is general. And it is, of their turn, be seized upon by ever
course, admitted on all sides that, watchful natural selection and raised
even were the Mendelian phenomenon to a high pitch of growth and function.
The second, somewhat, but by no
general and raised to the rank of a law
of heredity, it would not be subversive means altogether, neglected principle
of Mr. Darwin’s generalisations, but is that a good deal of the important
probably tend to the more ready variation in both plants and animals
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79
is not the variation of a minute part interest to mankind, who do not accept
or confined to one organ, but has their diseases unresistingly and die as
really an inner physiological basis, animals do, so purifying their race, but
and may be a variation of a whole incessantly combat and fight disease,
organic system or of a whole tissue producing new and terrible forms of
expressing itself at several points and it, by their wilful interference with
in several shapes. In fact, we should the earlier rule of Nature.
Our knowledge of disease has been
perhaps more generally conceive of
enormously advanced in the last quarter
variation as not so much the accom
plishment and presentation of one of a century, and in an important
little mark or difference in weight, degree our power of arresting it, by
length, or colour, as the expression of two great lines of study going on side
a tendency to vary in a given tissue or by side, and originated, not by medical
organ in a particular way. Thus we men nor by physiologists in the narrow
are prepared for the rapid extension technical sense, but by naturalists, a
and dominance of the variation if once botanist, and a zoologist. Ferdinand
it is favoured by selective breeding. It Cohn, Professor of Botany in Breslau,
seems to me that such cases as the by his own researches and by personal
complete disappearance of scales from training in his laboratory, gave to
the integument of some osseous fishes, Robert Koch the start on his distin
or the possible retention of three or guished career as a bacteriologist. It
four scales out of some hundreds is to Metschnikoff the zoologist and
present in nearly allied forms, favour embryologist that we owe the doctrine
this mode of conceiving of variation. of phagocytosis, and the consequent
So, also, does the marked tendency to theory of immunity now so widely
produce membranous expansions of the accepted.
We must not forget that in this
integument in the bats, not only between
same period much of the immortal
the digits and from the axilla, but from
the ears and different regions of the work of Pasteur on hydrophobia, of
face. Of course, the alternative hairy Behring and Roux on diphtheria, and
or smooth condition of the integuments of Ehrlich and many others to whom
both in plants and animals is a familiar the eternal gratitude of mankind is
instance in which a tendency extending due, has been going on. It is only
over a large area is recognised as that some fifteen years since Calmette
which constitutes the variation. In showed that, if cobra poison were in
smooth or hairy varieties we do not troduced into the blood of a horse in
postulate an individual development of less quantity than would cause death
hairs subjected one by one to selection the horse would tolerate, with little
and consequent survival or repression. disturbance, after ten days, a full dose,
Disease.— The study of the phy and then day after day an increasing
siology of unhealthy, injured, or dose, until the horse, without any
diseased organisms is called pathology. inconvenience, received an injection
It necessarily has an immense area of of cobra poison large enough to kill
observation, and is of transcending thirty horses of its size. Some of the
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THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
horse’s blood, being now withdrawn, the improvement in human conditions
was found to contain a very active which can thus be effected, yet we
antidote to cobra poison — what is cannot hope for any really complete or
called an antitoxin. The procedure satisfactory realisation of the ideal of
in the preparation of the antitoxin is escape from contact with infective
practically the same as that previously germs. The task is beyond human
adopted by Behring in the preparation powers. The conviction has now been
of the antitoxin of diphtheria poison. arrived at that, whilst we must take
Animals treated with injections of these every precaution to diminish infection,
antitoxins are immune to the poison yet our ultimate safety must come
itself when subsequently injected with from within—namely ,from the activity,
it, or, if already suffering from the the trained, stimulated, and carefully
poison (as, for instance, by snake-bite), guarded activity, of those wonderful
are readily shown by experiment to be colourless, amceba - like corpuscles
rapidly cured by the injection of the whose use was so long unrecognised,
appropriate antitoxin. This is, as all but has now been made clear by the
will admit, an intensely interesting bit patiently continued experiments and
of biology. The explanation of the arguments of Metschnikoff, who has
formation of the antitoxin in the blood named them “ phagocytes.”
The
and its mode of antagonising the poison doctrine of the activity and immense
is not easy. It seems that the anti importance of these corpuscles of the
toxin is undoubtedly formed from the living body, which form part of the
corresponding toxin or poison, and all-pervading connective tissues and
that the antagonism can be best under float also in the blood, is in its nature
stood as a chemical reaction by which and inception opposed to what are
the complex molecule of the poison is called the “ humoral ” and “ vitalistic ”
upset, or effectively modified.
theories of resistance to infection. Of
The remarkable development of this kind were the beliefs that the
Metschnikoff’s doctrine of phago liquids of the living body have an
cytosis during the past quarter of a inherent and somewhat vague power
century is certainly one of the charac of resisting infective germs, and even
teristic features of the activity of bio that the mere living quality of the
logical science in that period. At first tissues was in some unknown way
ridiculed as “ Metschnikoffism,” it has antagonistic to foreign intrusive disease
now won the support of its former germs.
adversaries.
The first eighteen years of Metsch
Bor a long time the ideal of hygien nikoff ’s career, after his undergraduate
ists has been to preserye man from all course, were devoted to zoological and
contact with the germs of infection, to embryological investigations. He dis
destroy them and destroy the animals covered many important facts, such as
conveying them, such as rats, mos the alternation of generations in the
quitoes, and other flies. But it has parasitic worm of the frog’s lung—
now been borne in upon us that, useful Ascaris nigrovenosa—and the history
as such attempts are, and great as is of the growth from the egg of sponges
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
In a transparent water-flea Metschnikoff saw these amceba-like, colour
less, floating blood-corpuscles swallow
ing and digesting the spores of a
parasitic fungus which had attacked
the water-fleas and was causing their
death. He came to the conclusion
and medusse. In these latter re
searches he came into contact with
the wonderfully active cells, or living
corpuscles, which in many low forms
of life can be seen by transparency in
the living animal. He saw that these
corpuscles (as was, indeed, already
Fig. 38-
Fig. 37.
Fig. 40.
81
Fig. 41.
Fig. 42.
Fig. 37.—Phagocyte or colourless corpuscle of a guinea-pig in the act of engulfing two Spirilla or
parasitic vegetable microbes of a spiral shape.
,
. , . _ ... ,
Fig. 38.—The same, half-an-hour later; one of the Spirilla is nearly completely engulfed.
Fig. 39._ The same, ten minutes later still; one of the Spirilla is completely absorbed into the
substance (protoplasm) of the phagocyte. (From Metsc'hnikoff’s book, Immunity, kindly supplied by
the Cambridge University Press.)
Fig. 40.—Phagocyte of a guinea-pig in the course of engulfing a very mobile undulating spirillum.
Fig'. 41.—The same, forty minutes later.
Fig 42 —The same, taken half-an-hour after Fig. 41. (From MetscHmkoff’s Immunity.}
Fig 43 —A large kind of phagocyte of the guinea-pig, killed and stained for microscopic examina
tion It shows the large spherical nucleus and three specimens of the Spirillum of relapsing-fever which
have been engulfed, and are lying within its protoplasm. They would have been slowly digested—that
is to say dissolved by the digestive juices within the phagocyte. (From Metschmkoff’s Immunity.)
known) resemble the well-known
amoeba, and can take into their soft
substance (protoplasm), at all parts of
their surface, any minute particles,
and digest them, thus destroying them.
that this is the chief, if not the whole,
value of these corpuscles in higher as
well as lower animals, in all of which
they are very abundant. It was known
that when a wound, bringing in foreign
�82
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matter, is inflicted on a vertebrate
animal, the blood - vessels become
gorged in the neighbourhood, and the
colourless corpuscles escape through
the walls of the vessels in crowds.
Their business in so doing, Metschnikoff showed, is to eat up the foreign
matter, and also to eat up and remove
the dead, wounded tissue. He there
fore called these white or colourless
corpuscles “ phagocytes,” the eater
cells, and in his beautiful book on
Inflammation, published twenty years
ago, proved the extreme importance of
their activity. At the same time he
had shown that they eat up intrusive
bacteria and other germs (see Figs. 3743); and his work for the last twentyfive years has mainly consisted in
demonstrating that they are the chief,
and probably the only, agents at work
in either ridding the human body of an
attack of disease-causing germs, or in
warding off even the commencement of
an attack, so that the man or animal
in which they are fully efficient is
“ immune ”—that is to say, cannot be
effectively attacked by disease-germs.
Disease-germs, bacteria, or protozoa
produce poisons which sometimes are
too much for the phagocytes, poison
ing them and so getting the upper
hand. But, as Metschnikoff showed,
the training of the phagocytes by weak
doses of the poison of the disease
germ, or by weakened cultures of the
disease-germ itself, brings about a
power of resistance in the phagocytes
to the germ’s poison, and thus makes
them capable of attacking the germs
and keeping them at bay. Hence the
value of inoculations.
The discussion and experiments
arising from Metschnikoff’s demon
strations have led to the discovery of
the production by the phagocytes of
certain exudations from their sub
stance which have a most important
effect in weakening the resistance of
the intrusive bacteria and rendering
them easy prey for the phagocyte.
These are called “ sensitisers,” and
have been largely studied. They may
be introduced artificially into ' the
blood and tissues so as to facilitate
the work of the phagocytes, and no
doubt it is a valuable remedial measure
to make use of such sensitisers as a
treatment. Dr. Wright considers that
such sensitisers are formed in the
blood and tissues independently of the
phagocytes, and has called them
“opsonins,” under which name he
has made most valuable application of
the method of injecting them into the
body so as to facilitate the work of
the phagocytes in devouring the hostile
bacteria of various diseases. Each
kind of disease-producing microbe has
its own sensitiser or opsonin; hence
there has been much careful research
and experiment required in order to
bring the discovery into practical use.
Metschnikoff himself holds and quotes
experiments to show that the “ opso
nins ” are actually produced by the
phagocytes themselves. That this
should be so is in accordance with
some striking zoological facts, as I
pointed out more than twenty years ago.1
For the lowest multicellular animals
provided with a digestive sac or gut,
such as the polyps, have that sac
lined by digestive cells which have the
same amoeboid character as “phago1 In a review of Metschnikofi’s “ Lemons
sur 1’Inflammation ” in Nature, 1889.
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
cytes,” and actually digest to a large
extent by swallowing or taking into
their individual protoplasm raw par
ticles of food. Such particles are
enclosed in a temporary cavity, or
vacuole, into which the cell-protoplasm
secretes digestive ferment and other
chemical agents. Now there is no
doubt that such digestive vacuoles may
burst and so pour out into the polyp’s
stomach a digestive juice which will
act on food particles outside the sub
stance of the cells, and thus by the
substitution of this process of out
pouring of the secretion for that of
ingestion of food particles into the
cells we get the usual form of digestion
by juices secreted into a digestive
cavity. Now this being certainly the
case in regard to the history of the
original phagocytes lining the polyp’s
gut, it does not seem at all unlikely,
but on the contrary in a high degree
probable, that the phagocytes of the
blood and tissues should behave in
the same way and pour out sensitisers
and opsonins to paralyse and prepare
their bacterial food. And the experi
ments of Metschnikoff’s pupils and
followers show that this is undoubtedly
the case. Whether there is any great
variety of and difference between
“sensitisers” and “opsonins” is a
matter which is still the subject of
active experiment. Metschnikoff’s con
clusion, as recently stated in regard to
the whole progress of this subject, is
that the phagocytes in our bodies
should be stimulated in their activity
in order successfully to fight the germs
of infection.
Alcohol, opium, and
even quinine hinder the phagocytic
action; they should therefore be
entirely eschewed or used only with
88
great caution where their other and
valuable properties are urgently needed.
It appears that the injection of blood
serum into the tissues of animals
causes an increase in the number and
activity of the phagocytes, and thus
an increase in the animals’ resistance
to pathogenic germs. Thus Durham
(who was a pioneer in his observations
on the curious phenomena of the
agglutination ” of blood corpuscles
in relation to disease) was led to
suggest the injection of sera during
surgical operations, and experiments
recently quoted by Metschnikoff seem
to show that the suggestion was well
founded. Both German and French
surgeons have employed the method
with successful results, and the demon
stration that an immense number of
microbes are thus taken up and
destroyed by the multiplication (due
to their regular increase by cell
division) of the phagocytes of the
injected patient. After years of oppo
sition bravely met in the pure scientific
spirit of renewed experiment and
demonstration, Metschnikoff is at last
able to say that the foundation-stone
of the hygiene of the tissues—the
thesis that our phagocytes are our
arms of defence against infective germs
—has been generally accepted.
Another feature of the progress of
our knowledge of disease—as a scien
tific problem—is the recent recognition
that minute animal parasites of that
low degree of unicellular structure to
which the name “ Protozoa ” is given
are the causes of serious and ravaging
diseases, and that the minute algoid
plants, the bacteria, are not alone in
possession of this field of activity. It
was Laveran—a French medical man
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THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
Fig. 44.
A diagram showing the life-history and migration of the Malaria parasite, Laverania Malaria, as
discovered by Laveran, Ross, and Grassi. The stages above the dotted line take place in the blood of
man, The oblopg-pointed parasite is seen entering the blood at n just below No. I. The circles
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
—who, just about twenty-five years
ago, discovered the minute animal
organism in the red blood-corpuscles
which is the cause of malaria (see
Mg, 44). Year by year ever since our
knowledge of this terrible little parasite
has increased. We now know many
similar to, but not identical with it,
living in the blood of birds, reptiles,
and frogs (see Fig. 45).
It is the great merit of Sir Ronald
Ross, formerly of the Indian Army
Medical Staff, to have discovered, by
most patient and persevering experi
ment, that the malaria parasite passes
a part of its life in the spot-winged
gnat or mosquito {Anopheles), not, as
he had at first supposed, in the
common gnat or mosquito {Culex),
and that if we can get rid of spot
winged mosquitoes or avoid their
attentions, or even only prevent them
from sucking the blood of malarial
patients, we can lessen, or even abolish,
malaria.
This great discovery was followed
by another as to the production of the
deadly “ Nagana ” horse and cattle
disease in South Africa by a screw
like, minute animal parasite Trypano
soma, Brucii (see Fig. 46 B). The
85
Tsetze fly (see Fig. 48 A, B), which
was already known in some way to
produce this disease, was found by
Colonel David Bruce to do so by con
veying by its bite the Trypanosoma
from wild big-game animals to the
domesticated horses and cattle of the
colonists. The discovery of the parasite
and its relation to the fly and the
disease was as beautiful a piece of
scientific investigation as biologists
have ever seen. A curious and very
important fact was discovered by
Bruce—-namely, that the native big
game (zebras, antelopes, and probably
buffaloes) are tolerant of the parasite.
The Trypanosoma grows and multiplies
in their blood, but does not kill them
or even injure them. It is only the
unaccustomed introduced animals from
Europe which are poisoned by the
chemical excreta of the Trypanosomes
and die in consequence. Hence the
wild creatures—brought into a condi
tion of tolerance by natural selection
and the dying out of those susceptible
to the poison—form a sort of “ reser
voir ” of deadly Trypanosomes for the
Tsetze flies to carry into the blood of
new-comers. The same phenomenon
of “reservoir-hosts” (as I have else-
represent the red blood-discs of man. Schizogony means multiplication by simple division or splitting,
and it is seen in Nos. 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. The stages below the dotted line are passed in the body of the
spot-winged gnats of the genus Anopheles. A peculiar crescent or sausage-shaped condition is assumed
by the parasite inside the red corpuscle No. VI. These are found to be of two kinds, male and female,
Nos. Vila and Vllb. They are swallowed by the spot-winged gnat when it sucks the blood of an infected
ma.n- Fere I11 the gut of the gnat they become sphericle; the male spheres produce spermatozoa No.Xa,
whit® fuse with and fertilise the female spheres or egg-cells No. XI. An active worm-like form No. XIII
results, which pushes its way partly through the wall of the gnat’s gut, and is then nourished by the
gnat s blood. It swells up, divides internally again and again, and is enclosed in a firm transparent case
or cyst, Nos. XIV to XVIII. The cysts are far larger in proportion than is shown in the diagram, and
are visible to the naked eye. The final product of the breaking-up, which is called sporogony, is a vast
number of needle-shaped spores or young (called Exotospores, as opposed to the Enhaemospores, which
are formed m the human blood, as seen in Nos. 9 and 10, and serve there to spread the infection among
the red corpuscles). The needle-shaped spores formed in the gnat’s body accumulate in its salivary
glands, and pass out by the mouth of the gnat wnen it stabs a new human victim, who thus becomes
infected, No. XIX.
Had the sausage-like phases Nob. Vila and VHb been swallowed by a common gnat or mosquito of
tne genus Culex, they would have been digested and destroyed. It is only in species of gnats of the kind
known as Anopheles that the parasite can undergo its sexual development and subsequent process of
the formation of cysts and needle-shaped exotospores. (After Minchin in Part I. of Lankester’s Treatise
on Zoology, published by A. and C. Black.)
�86
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
Fig. 45.
Jbankestrella ranarum (Lank.), the parasite of the red blood-corpuscles of the edible frog, described
originally as Drevanidium ranarum by Lankester in 1882, and previously without name in 1871. The
large ovak^repreTenUhe red corpuscles of the frog ; the dark central mass is the nucleus, N. In a t w®
spindle-shaped parasites are seen ; in b one larger parasite with nucleus n'
^^fVhc spherical
parasite is V-shaped. In d the parasite has become spherical, and w;so ine also. Li f the sphci cal
Lankester’s Treatise on Zoology.)
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
where called them) has since been
observed in the case of malaria; the
children of the native blacks in Africa
and in other malarious regions are
tolerant of the malarial parasite, as
87
which consists in repulsion or destruc
tion of the parasite.
The Trypanosomes have acquired a
terrible notoriety within the last ten
years, since another species, also
E.
Fig. 46.
Various species of Trypanosoma from the blood of mammals, birds, and reptiles. A, T. Lewisii, i
from the blood of rats ; B, T. Brucii, the parasite of the Nagana or Tsetze-fly disease, found in the blood
of horses, cattle, and big game; O, T. gambiensi, the parasite causing sleeping sickness in man;
D, T. equinum, which causes the mal de caderas in South American horse ranches ; E, T. noctuee, from
the blood of the little owl, Athene noctua ; F, T. avium, found in the blood of many birds; G, a species
found in the blood of Indian pigeons; H, T. Ziemanni, a second species from the blood of the little owl;
J, T. Damoniee, from the blood of a tortoise; c g granules; v vacuole; I s fold of the crest or undulating
membrane.
These figures are from Dr. Woodcock’s article on the “ Heemoflagellates ” in the Quarterly Journal
of Microscopical Science, April and June, 1906. (See also the figures in the next chapter relating to
Sleeping Sickness.)
many as 80 per cent, of children under
ten being found to be infected, and yet
not suffering from the poison. This
is not the same thing as the immunity
carried by a Tsetze fly of another
species, has been discovered by Castellani in cases of “ sleeping sickness ” iu
Uganda, and demonstrated by Colonel
E
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THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
Bruce to be the cause of that awful
disease.1 Over 200,000 natives of
Uganda have died from it within the
last five years. It is incurable, and,
sad to relate, not only a certain
number of European employees have
succumbed to it in tropical Africa,
but a brave young officer of the Army
Medical Corps, Lieutenant Tulloch,
has died from the disease, acquired by
him in the course of an investigation
of this disease and its possible cure,
which he was carrying out, in associa
tion with other men of science, on the
Victoria Nyanza Lake in Central
Africa. Lieutenant Tulloch was sent
out to this investigation by the Eoyal
Society of London, and I will venture
to ask my readers to join that body in
sympathy for his friends and admira
tion for him and the other courageous
men who risk their lives in the en
deavour to arrest disease.
Trypanosomes are now being recog
nised in the most diverse regions of
the world as the cause of disease—
new horse diseases in South America,2
in North Africa, in the Philippines,
and East India are all traced to
peculiar species of Trypanosome.
Other allied forms are responsible
for Delhi-sore and certain peculiar
Indian fevers of man. A peculiar
‘and ultra-minute parasite of the blood
cells causes Texas fever, and various
African fevers deadly to cattle.3 In
1 See the next chapter devoted to this
subject.
2 [As well as a new human disease carried
by a huge bug in Brazil. J
8 From recent researches it appears most
probable that ah extremely minute parasite
of this nature is the cause of yellow fever.
A special kind of mosquito, the Stegomgia
fasciata, has for some years now been known
to be its carrier.
all these cases, as also in that of
plague, the knowledge of the carrier
of the disease, often a tick or acarid—•
in that of plague the flea of the rat—is extremely important, as well as the
knowledge of reservoir - hosts when
such exist.
The zoologist thus comes into closer
touch than ever with the profession of
medicine, and the time has arrived
when the professional students of
disease fully admit that they must
bring to their great and hopeful task
of abolishing the diseases of man the
fullest aid from every branch of bio
logical science. I need not say how
great is the contentment of those who
have long worked at apparently useless
branches of science—such as are the
careful and elaborate distinction of
every separate kind of animal and the
life-history and structure peculiar to
each—in the belief that all knowledge is
good, to find that the science they have
cultivated has become suddenly and
urgently of the highest practical value.
I have not time to do more than
mention here the effort that is being
made by combined international
research and co-operation to push
further in our knowledge of phthisis
and of cancer, with a view to their
destruction. It is only within the
past quarter of a century that the
parasite of phthisis or tubercle has
been made known; we may hope that
it will not be long before we have
similar knowledge as to cancer. Only
eighteen months have elapsed since
Fritz Schaudinn discovered the longsought parasitic germ of syphilis, the
Spirocheta pallida (see Fig. 6). As I
write these words1 the sad news of
1 [In 1906].
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
Schaudinn’s death at the age of thirtyfive comes to me from his family at
Hamburg—an irreparable loss.
Let me finally state, in relation to
this study of disease, what is the
simple fact — namely, that if the
people of Britain wish to make an
end of infective and other diseases
they must take every possible means
to discover capable investigators and
employ them for this purpose. To do
this far more money is required than
is at present spent in that direction.
It is necessary, if we are to do our
utmost, to spend a thousand pounds
of public money on this task where
we now spend one pound. It would
be reasonable and wise to expend ten
million pounds a year of our revenues
on the investigation and attempt to
destroy disease. Actually, what is so
spent is a mere nothing, a few thou
sands a year. Meanwhile our people
are dying by thousands of preventable
disease.
2.—The Advancement of Science as
Measured by the Support given
to it by Public Funds, and the
Respect Accorded to Scientific
Work by the British Government
and the Community at Large.
Whilst I have been able, though in
a very fragmentary and incomplete
way, to indicate the satisfactory and,
indeed, the wonderful progress of
science in the last quarter of a cen
tury, so far as the making of new
knowledge is concerned, I am sorry
to say that there is by no means
a corresponding “ advancement” of
science in that signification of the
word which implies the increase of
89
the influence of science in the life of
the community, the increase of the
support given to it, and of the desire
to aid in its progress, to discover and
then to encourage and reward those
who are specially fitted to increase
scientific knowledge and to bring it to
bear so as to promote the welfare of
the community.
It is, unfortunately, true that the
successive political administrators of
the affairs of this country, as well as
the permanent officials, are altogether
unaware to-day, as they were twentyfive years ago, of the vital importance
of that knowledge which we call
science, and of the urgent need for
making use of it in a variety of public
affairs. Whole departments of Govern
ment in which scientific knowledge is
the one thing needful are carried on
by Ministers, permanent secretaries,
assistant secretaries, and clerks who
are wholly ignorant of science, and
naturally enough dislike it, since it
cannot be used by them, and is in
many instances the condemnation of
their official employment. Such officials
are, of course, not to be blamed, but
rather the general indifference of the
public to the unreasonable way in
which its interests are neglected.
A difficult feature in treating of this
subject is that when one mentions the
fact that Ministers of State and the
officials of the public service are not
acquainted with science, and do not
even profess to understand its results
or their importance, one’s statement
of this very obvious and notorious fact
is apt to be regarded as a personal
offence. It is difficult to see wherein
the offence lies, for no one seeks to
blame these officials for a condition of
�90
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
things which is traditional and frankly
admitted.
This is really a very serious matter
for the scientific world to consider and
deal with. We represent a line of
activity, a group of professions which
are in our opinion of vital importance
to the well-being of the nation. We
know that those interests which we
value so highly are not merely ignored
and neglected, but are actually treated
as of no account or as non-existent by
the old-established class of politicians
and administrators. It is not too much
to say that there is a natural fear and
dislike of scientific knowledge on the
part of a large proportion of the per
sons who are devoid of it, and who
would cease to hold, or never have
held, the positions of authority or
emolument which they now occupy
were scientific knowledge of the
matters with which they undertake
to deal required of them. This is a
thorny subject, and one in which,
however much one may endeavour to
speak in general terms, it is difficult
to avoid causing personal annoyance.
Yet it seems to me one of urgent
importance. Probably an inquiry into
and discussion of the neglect of science
and the questionable treatment of scien
tific men by the administrative depart
ments of Government might with
advantage be undertaken by a com
mittee appointed by our great scientific
societies for the purpose.
At the same time, public attention
should be drawn in general terms to
the fact that science is not gaining
“ advancement ” in public and official
consideration and support. The reason
is, I think, to be found in the defective
education, both at school and univer
sity, of our governing class, as well as
in a racial dislike among all classes to
the establishment and support by public
funds of posts which the average man
may not expect to succeed, by popular
clamour or class privilege, in gaining
for himself—posts which must be held
by men of special training and mental
gifts. Whatever the reason for the
neglect, the only remedy which we can
possibly apply is that of improved
education for the upper classes, and
the continued effort to spread a know
ledge of the results of science and a
love for it amongst all members of the
community. If believers in science
took this matter seriously to heart,
they might do a great deal by insisting
that their sons, and their daughters
too, should have reasonable instruction
in science both at school and college.
They could, by their own initiative
and example, do a good deal to put an
end to the trifling with classical litera
ture and the absorption in athletics
which is considered by too many
schoolmasters as that which the
British parent desires as the education
of his children.
Within the past year a letter has
been published by a well-known noble
man who is one of the Trustees of the
British Museum, holding up to public
condemnation the method in which
the system laid down by the officials
of the Treasury, and sanctioned by
successive Governments, as to the
remuneration of scientific men, was
applied in an individual case. I desire
to place on record here the Earl of
Crawford’s letter to the Times of
October 31, 1905, for the careful con
sideration of those who desire the
advancement of science. When such
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
91
things are done, science cannot be said failure of science to gain increased in
to have advanced much in public con fluence and support in this country,
sideration or Governmental support:— but to mention some instances on the
other side of the account. As long
To the Editor of the “ Times."
SIB,—The death, noted by you to-day, of ago as 1842 the British Association
my dear friend and colleague Dr. Copeland, took over and developed an observatory
His Majesty’s Astronomer for Scotland, creates in the Deer Park at Kew, which was
a vacancy in the scientific staff of Great placed at the disposal of the Associa
Britain.
Will you permit me, Sir, to offer a word of tion by Her Majesty the Queen. Until
warning to any who may be asked to succeed 1871 the Association spent annually
him ?
a large part of its income—as much in
Students or masters of astronomy are not, later years as £600 a year—in carrying
in the selfish sense, business men, nor are
on the work of the Kew Observatory,
they, as a general rule, overburdened with
this world’s goods. It behoves them hence consisting of magnetic, meteorological,
forth to take more care as to their future in and physical observations. In 1871
case of illness or physical infirmity, and not the Association handed over the Obser
to trust to the gratitude or generous impulse vatory to the Royal Society, which
of the Treasury Department.
In old days it was the custom, when a man had received an endowment of £10,000
distinguished in science was brought into a from Mr. Gassiot for its maintenance,
high position in the Civil Service, that he was and had further devoted to that pur
credited with a certain number of years’ service pose considerable sums from its own
ranking for pension. This practice has been donation fund and Government grant.
done away with, and a bargain system sub
stituted. A short while ago the growing Further aid for it was also received
agonies of heart disease caused Dr. Copeland from private sources. From this Obser
to feel that he was less able to carry on the vatory at last has sprung, in the begin
duties of his post, and he determined to resign; ning of the present century, the National
but he learnt that under the scale, and in the
Physical Laboratory in Bushey Park,
absence of any special bargain, the pension he
would receive would not suffice for the neces a fine and efficient scientific institution,
sities of life. The only increase his friends built and supported by grants from the
could get from the Treasury was an offer to State, and managed by a committee of
allow him about half-a-crown a week extra really devoted men of science who are
by way of a house.
Indignant and ashamed of my Government, largely representatives of the Royal
I persuaded Dr. Copeland to withdraw his Society. In addition to the value of
resignation, and to retain the official position the site and buildings occupied by
which he has honoured till his death.
the National Physical Laboratory, the
1 trust, Sir, that this memorandum of mine Government has contributed altogether
may cause eminent men of science who are
asked to enter the service of the State when £34,000 to the capital expenditure on
already of middle age to take heed for their new buildings, fittings, and apparatus,
future welfare.
and has further assigned a grant of
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
£6,000 a year to the working of the
Cbawfobd.
laboratory. This institution all men of
2 Cavendish Square, October 28.
science are truly glad to have gained
It is more agreeable to me not to from the State, and they will remember
dwell further on the comparative with gratitude the statesmen—the late
�92
THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
Marquis of Salisbury, ths Right Hon.
Arthur J. Balfour, Mr. Haldane, and
others—as well as their own leaders
—Lord Rayleigh, Sir William Huggins,
and the active body of physicists in
the Royal Society—who have carried
this enterprise to completion. The
British Association has every reason
to be proud of its share in early days
in nursing the germ at Kew, which has
at length expanded into this splendid
national institution.
I may mention also another institu
tion which, during the past quarter of
a century, has come into existence,
and received, originally through the
influence of the late Lord Playfair (one
of the few men of science who have ever
occupied the position of a Minister of
the Grown), and later by the influence
of the Right Hon. Joseph Chamberlain,
a subsidy of £1,000 a year from the
Government and a contribution of
£5,000 towards its initial expenses.
This is the Marine Biological Associa
tion,1 which has a laboratory at Ply
mouth (see Pig. 47), and has lately
expended a special annual grant, at
the spontaneous invitation of His
Majesty’s Treasury, in conducting an
investigation of the North Sea in
accordance with an international
scheme devised by a central committee
of scientific experts. This scheme has
for its purpose the gaining of such know1 I had the honour and good fortune to
found this association, and to collect the funds
so generously given to it; then for many
years to act as its honorary secretary, to
design and superintend the erection of the
laboratory, and to organise, in conjunction
with my scientific colleagues, its staff, its
scheme of work and government. On the
death of our beloved President, Professor
Huxley, I was elected as his successor, and
still occupy that position.
ledge of the North Sea and its in
habitants as shall be useful in dealing
practically and by legislation with the
great fisheries of that area. The reader
will, perhaps, not be surprised to hear
that there are persons in high positions
who, though admittedly unacquainted
with the scientific questions at issue
or the proper manner of solving them,
are discontented with the action of the
Government in entrusting the expen
diture of public money to a body of
scientific men who give their services,
without reward or thanks, to carrying
out the purposes of the international
inquiry. Strange criticisms are offered
by these malcontents in regard to the
work done in the international explora
tion of the North Sea, and a desire is
expressed to secure the money for
expenditure by a less scientific agency.
I do not hesitate to say here that the
results obtained by the Marine Bio
logical Association are of great value
and interest, and, if properly con
tinued and put to practical application,
are likely to benefit very greatly the
fishery industry; on the other hand, if
the work is cut short or entrusted to
incompetent hands, it will, no doubt,
be the case that what has already been
done will lose its value—that is to
say, will have been wasted. There is
imminent danger of this perversion of
the funds assigned to this scientific
investigation taking place.1 There is
no guarantee for the continuance of
any funds or offices assigned to science
in one generation by the officials of the
next. The Mastership of the Mint,
held by Isaac Newton, and finally by
1 [The present Government (1911) has
withdrawn the special grant for North Sea
investigations.]
�THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE
the ' great chemist Thomas Graham,
has been abolished, and its salary
appropriated by non-scientific officials.
Only a few years ago it was with great
difficulty that the Government of the
day was prevented from assigning the
Assistant-Directorship of Kew Gardens
to a young man of influence devoid of
all knowledge of botany I
One of the most solid tests of the
93
quent; they are rare in this country.
It is, therefore, with especial pleasure
that I call attention to a great gift to
science in this country made only a
few years ago.
Lord Iveagh has
endowed the Lister Institute, for
researches in connection with the
prevention of disease, with no less a
sum than a quarter of a million pounds
sterling. This is the largest gift ever
Fig. 47.
The Laboratory of the Marine Biological Association on the Citadel Hill, Plymouth, overlooking
Plymouth Sound. The laboratory was built with the aid of funds raised by public subscription and a
contribution of £5,000 by H.M. Government, and cost £12,200. The Association had up to the year 1906
expended, exclusive of this sum, since the opening of the laboratory in 1884, about £62,000, or an average
of £3,000 a year on the maintenance of the laboratory, steam-boat, and fishing boats, and in payment of
a staff of scientific observers. Of this sum the Government has contributed one-third; the rest has
come from private donations and subscriptions, and from the “ earnings ” of the laboratory by sale of
specimens, admission fees to the tank-room, etc. The journal of the Association, published at intervals,
records a vast amount of scientific work, advancing our knowledge of marine life and of the life-history
of fishes.
In addition to the above expenditure and results, the Association has superintended and most
carefully directed the expenditure of £6,000 a year during recent years in the investigation of the
southern area of the North Sea and of the Channel at the request of H.M. Government, the work being
part of the International Investigation of the North Sea. The very voluminous results of these inquiries
are published in special reports by the International Committee. Full particulars of the work of the
Marine Biological Association can be obtained from Dr. E. J. Allen, the Director, the Laboratory,
Citadel Hill, Plymouth, who will also receive donations and applications for membership of the
Association.
esteem and value attached to scientific
progress by the community is the dedi
cation of large sums of money to
scientific purposes by its wealthier
members. We know that in the
United States such gifts are not infre-
made to science in this country, and
will be productive of great benefit to
humanity. The Lister Institute took
its origin in the surplus of a fund
raised (at my suggestion, and with my
assistance as secretary) by Sir James
�94
THE ADVANCE OE SCIENCE
Whitehead, when Lord Mayor, for the
purpose of making a gift to the Pas
teur Institute in Paris, where many
English patients had been treated,
without charge, after being bitten by
rabid dogs. Three thousand pounds
was sent to M. Pasteur, and the sur
plus of a few hundred pounds was
made the starting-point of a fund
which grew, by one generous gift and
another, until the Lister Institute, on
the Thames Embankment at Chelsea,
was set up on a site presented by that
good and high-minded man the late
Duke of Westminster.
Many other noble gifts to scientific
research have been made in this
country during the period on which
we are looking back. Let us be thank
ful for them, and admire the wise
munificence of the donors. But none
the less we must refuse to rely en
tirely on such liberality for the deve
lopment of the army of science, which
has to do battle for mankind against
the obvious disabilities and sufferings
which afflict us and can be removed
by knowledge. The organisation and
finance of this army should be the care
of the State.
It is a fact, which many who have
observed it regret very keenly, that
there is to-day a less widespread inter
est than formerly in natural history
and general science outside the strictly
professional arena of the school and
university.
The field naturalists
among the squires and the country
parsons seem nowadays not to be so
numerous and active in their delight
ful pursuits as formerly, and the
Mechanics’ Institutes and Lecture
Societies of the days of Lord
Brougham have given place, to a very
large extent, to musical performances,
bioscopes, and other entertainments—
more diverting, but not really more
capable of giving pleasure, than those
in which science was popularised. No
doubt the organisation and profes
sional character of scientific work are
to a large extent the cause of this
falling-off in its attraction for ama
teurs. But perhaps that decadence is
also due in some measure to the in
creased general demand for a kind of
manufactured gaiety, readily sent out
in these days of easy transport from
the great centres of fashionable amuse
ment to the provinces and rural dis
tricts.
Before concluding this retrospect I
would venture to allude to the rela
tions of scientific progress to religion.
Putting aside the troubles connected
with special creeds and churches, and
the claims of the clerical profession to
certain funds and employments, to the
exclusion of laymen, it should, I think,
be recognised that there is no essential
antagonism between the scientific spirit
and what is called the religious sen
timent.
“ Religion,” said Bishop
Creighton, “ means the knowledge of
our destiny and of the means of ful
filling it.” We can say no more and
no less of Science. Men of Science
seek, in all reverence, to discover the
Almighty, the Everlasting.
They
claim sympathy and friendship with
those who, like themselves, have
turned away from the more material
struggles of human life, and have set
their hearts and minds on the know*
ledge of the Eternal.
�THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
95
Chapter III.
NATURE’S REVENGES: THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
Among the strange and mysterious
diseases to which mankind is subject
in regions less familiar to the civilised
world than Western Europe, none is
stranger or more appalling in its quiet,
inexorable deadliness than the Sleeping
Sickness of the West African coast.
Apparently it has existed among the
natives of that region from time
immemorial; but the first printed
record we have of it is due to Winter
bottom, who, writing in 1803 of Sierra
Leone, said: “ The Africans are very
subject to a species of lethargy which
they are much afraid of, as it proves
fatal in every instance.” One of the
latest notices of the disease, before it
became the subject of active investiga
tion within the last ten years, is that
of Miss Kingsley, who saw a few cases
near the Congo estuary; but, though
she was impressed by the mysterious
fatality of the disease, she did not
describe it as very prevalent or as a
general source of danger to life. The
opening up of the Congo basin and in
creased familiarity with the inner
lands of the West African coast have
shown that this disease is widely
scattered—though rarely so abundant
as to be a serious scourge—through
the whole of tropical West Africa.
Writers in the early part of the last
century described the disease as
occurring in the West Indies and in
Brazil. Its presence was almost cer
tainly due, in those days of the slave
trade, to the importation of negroes
already infected with the disease ; and
a curious theory obtained some favour,
according to which the sleeping sick
ness of the West Indian slaves was a
kind of nostalgia, and, in fact, the
manifestation of what is sometimes
called “ a broken heart.”
The signs that a patient has con
tracted the disease are very obvious.
They are recognised by the black
people, and the certainly fatal issue
accepted with calm acquiescence. The
usually intelligent expression of the
healthy negro is replaced by a dull,
apathetic appearance; and there is a
varying amount of fever and headache.
This may last for some weeks, but is
followed more or less rapidly by a
difficulty in locomotion and speech, a
trembling of the tongue and hands.
There is increased fever and constant
drowsiness, from which the patient is
roused only to take food. At last—usually after some three or four
months of illness—complete somno
lence sets in ; no food is taken, the
body becomes emaciated and ulcerated,
and the victim dies in a state of coma.
The course of the disease, from the
time when the apathetic stage is first
noticed, may last from two to twelve
months.
It is this terrible disease which has
lately appeared on the shores of the
Victoria Nyanza, in the kingdom of
Uganda, administered by the British
�96
THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
Government. Until the early part of
the year 1901 there was not the
slightest suspicion that sleeping sick
ness occurred in any part of the
Uganda Protectorate; nor was it
known in East Africa at all, any more
than in the north and south of that
great continent. It seems gradually to
have crept up the newly-opened traderoutes of the Congo basin, and thence
to have spread into the west of
Uganda, the territory known as
Busoga. Numbers of Soudanese and
Congo men are known to have settled
in this region after the death of Emin
Pasha. First noticed in 1901, it was
estimated in June, 1902, by the
Commissioner of Uganda, writing
officially to the Marquess of Lans
downe, that 20,000 persons had died
of this disease in the district of Busoga
alone, and several thousands in the
more eastern portion of Uganda.
In 1906 the number of deaths in
this region due to sleeping sickness
since 1901 amounted to more than
200,000 ; and this though, most fortu
nately, the disease had not yet spread
eastward from Uganda into British
East Africa,1 nor, so far as had been
1 The disease has actually entered into the
administrative area known as British Bast
Africa, but has not made any rapid progress
towards the coast. According to a report by
Dr. Wiggins, the disease is confined in British
East Africa, as in Uganda, to those areas in
which Glossina palpalis occurs. [To this I
must now (1912) add that the disease has
spread into both the Upper Soudan and
Nyassaland. Continuous and praiseworthy
efforts to deal with the disease have been
made by the Colonial Office, and are still in
progress. An expedition has this winter been
sent, under Colonel Sir David Bruce, to study
the spread of the disease in Nyassaland. The
Royal Society of London has now for some
years maintained a special bureau, issuing
reports at regular intervals of all information
as to the investigations into sleeping sickness
reported, down the Nile. No curative
treatment for the disease has yet been
discovered; nor is there any authen
ticated instance of recovery.1
The appalling mortality produced by
this disease in Central Africa naturally
caused the greatest anxiety to his
Majesty’s Government, which had but
just completed the railway from the
East Coast to the shores of lake Vic
toria Nyanza, and had established a
prosperous and happy rule in that
densely populated region. The official
medical men on the spot, though
capable and experienced practitioners,
were unable to cope with this new
and virulent outbreak. The Foreign
Office, having no imperial board of
hygiene and medical administration to
apply to in this country, sought the
assistance of the Royal Society of
London.
A committee of that society had
already undertaken the study of
malaria at the request of the Secre
tary of State for the Colonies, and
had sent out young medical men as a
commission to make certain enquiries
and experiments on that subject and
report to the committee in London.
The sleeping sickness enquiry was un
dertaken by the same committee; but
unfortunately very insufficient funds
were placed at its disposal. When
the South African cattle-owners found
their herds threatened twelve years
carried out not only by British observers and
officials, but also by French, German, and
other investigators. A really adequate effort
is being made to deal with the disease.J
1 [A treatment by means of injections of
antimony (potassium tartar emetic) into the
blood has been used, as well as other similar
methods. A very few cases (not a dozen) are
on record of permanent recovery under such
treatment.]
�THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
ago by a new form of mortal disease—
the East Coast fever ”—the South
African Government accepted the offer
of Dr. Robert Koch, of Berlin, to
undertake the investigation of the
disease and the discovery, if possible,
of a remedy, for the sum of £10,000.
No such sum was at the disposal of
the committee of the Royal Society.
They were obliged to send out young
and enterprising medical men, practi
cally without pay or reward, to see
what they could do in the way of
determining the cause of, and, if pos
sible, the remedy for, the terrible
sleeping sickness raging in Uganda
and destroying daily hundreds of
British subjects. The committee set
to work in the summer of 1902, and
sent out Drs. Low, Christy, and
Castellani to Entebbe, the capital of
Uganda.
The guesses as to the cause and
nature of sleeping sickness at the time
when this commission set forth were
very various. Some highly capable
medical authorities held that it was
due to poisonous food. The root of
the manioc, on which the natives feed,
was supposed to become infected by
some poison-producing ferment.
A
more generally received opinion was
that it was caused hy a specific bac
terium which invades the tissues of
the brain and spinal cord. Several
totally different micro-organisms of
this sort had been described with
equal confidence by Erench and Por
tuguese investigators as the cause of
the sleeping sickness studied by them
in West Africa or on the Congo. Sir
Patrick Manson, the head of the British
Colonial medical service, an authority
of great experience in tropical disease,
97
had put forward the suggestion that
the sleeping sickness was due to the
infection of the patient by a minute
thread-worm (allied to the “ vinegar
eel,” and one of a great class of para
sites) which he had discovered in the
blood of negroes, and had named
Filaria perstans.
The occurrence of minute worms
(true worms, neither unicellular plants
nor protozoa) in the blood of man was
first made known by Dr. Timothy
Lewis, who described the Filaria
sanguinis hominis, as well as some
other most important blood-parasites,
some years ago (1878), when officially
engaged in an enquiry into the cause
of cholera in Calcutta. Subsequently,
in China, Manson found that these
little blood-worms were sucked up by
mosquitoes when gorging themselves
on the blood of a patient. It is,
indeed, difficult to imagine how they
should escape passing into the mosquito
with the blood. Manson suggested
that the minute worms (known to be
the embryos of a worm which, when
adult, is about two inches long) are
obliged to pass through a mosquito in
order to accomplish their development;
but no proof of this suggestion has
ever been made. We know by abun
dant and repeated demonstration and
experiment that another blood-parasite
—the malaria parasite—must pass
through a mosquito, in whose body it
develops, and by which it is carried to
a new victim of infection. This was
suspected long ago by both peasants
and doctors, and experimentally proved
by Ross; but no such proof has been
given of the relation of Lewis’s blood
worm to a mosquito. The so-called
Filaria perstans, discovered by Manson
�98
THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
in the blood of negroes, appears to be
very different from the Filaria san
guinis hominis of Lewis. It is not
known how it gets into the blood ; and
it is very astonishing, and much to be
regretted, that none of the medical
men who have had it under observa
tion have given a proper anatomical
account of it. It appears that this
worm is very common in the blood of
negroes in tropical Africa; and as it
was found in several cases in the
blood of individuals attacked by sleep
ing sickness, Sir Patrick Manson was
justified in entertaining the view that
this parasite was the cause of the
disease.
One of the first results obtained by
the commission sent by the Royal
Society committee to Uganda was the
proof—which had, indeed, been already
furnished by the resident medical
officers of the Uganda Protectorate—
that Filaria perstans, though remark
ably abundant in the blood of the
negroes of Uganda, can have nothing
to do with sleeping sickness, since,
though it often occurs in persons
attacked with that disease, it also
exists in districts where sleeping sick
ness is unknown; and, further, many
cases of sleeping sickness have been
observed in which no Filaria perstans
has been discovered in the blood or
other parts of the body.
While Drs. Low and Christy occu
pied themselves with settling this
question as to the connection of Filaria
perstans with the disease and carried
out a careful study of its clinical
aspects, Dr. Castellani examined the
brain and spinal cord of those who
died from sleeping sickness, for bac
teria. He found again and again an
extremely minute globular vegetable
parasite—of the kind known as strep
tococcus—which he concluded to be
the cause of the disease, although he
had not produced the disease experi
mentally by inoculating an animal
with this microbe.
In the early part of 1903 these were
the only results obtained by some six
months’ work of the medical men sent
out by the Royal Society’s committee;
and it was felt that something more
must be done. The investigation of
a disease hitherto little known and
studied is one of the most difficult
tasks in the world, requiring the
highest scientific qualities.
Any
serious attempt to deal with the
sleeping sickness in Uganda would,
it was at length recognised, require
the dispatch of a man of proved
capacity and experience, provided
with full powers and with trained
men as his assistants. No such men
are provided by the public service of
the British Empire. To detach a
medical man of recognised insight and
experimental skill from his practice—
even were it possible to find one
specially qualified for the present
enquiry—would involve the payment
of a large fee, which neither the Royal
Society nor the Foreign Office could
command.
What, then, was to be done ? For
tunately there was one man in the
public service, recently appointed to
be one of the chiefs of the educational
arrangements of the Army Medical
Department, who had shown himself
to be especially gifted in the investi
gation of obscure diseases. This was
Colonel David Bruce, F.R.S., who
some fifteen years ago established the
�THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
existence of Malta fever as an inde
pendent disease by his clinical obser
vations and by the isolation and
cultivation of the parasitic bacterium
causing it; and who, further, when
employed by the governor of Zululand
a few years later (1895) to investigate
the celebrated tsetze-fly disease of South
Africa, had discovered, contrary to the
assertions and prejudices of a large
number of African sportsmen and
explorers, that the horse and cattle
disease known as nagana or tsetze-fly
disease was due to the presence in the
blood of the affected animals of a
peculiar corkscrew-like animal para
site, the Trypanosoma Brucei. This
is carried by the bite of the tsetze fly
from the blood of wild game, such as
buffalo and antelope, where it does no
harm, to the blood of domesticated
animals, in which it multiplies and
proves to be the source of a deadly
poison causing death in a few weeks.
The experiments by which Colonel
Bruce demonstrated this relationship
of tsetze fly, trypanosome parasite,
wild big game, and domesticated
animals were universally regarded as
masterly, both in conception and
execution, and absolutely conclusive.
The committee of the Royal Society
came to the conclusion that the thing
to be done was to get Colonel Bruce
to consent to proceed to Uganda, and
to recommend the Foreign Office to
obtain from the War Office the
temporary detachment of Colonel
Bruce for this service. Accordingly
Colonel Bruce arrived in Uganda in
the middle of March, 1903. Dr. Low
and Dr. Christy had already departed,
but Dr. Castellani was still at Entebbe
engaged in the study of his strepto
99
coccus. He mentioned to Colonel
Bruce on his arrival that he had on
more than one occasion seen a try
panosome in the cerebro-spinal fluid
of negroes suffering from sleeping
sickness; but, inasmuch as Dutton
on the West Coast and Hodges in
Uganda had described a trypanosome
as an occasional parasite in human
blood, he had not considered its
occurrence in sleeping-sickness patients
as of any more significance than is the
occurrence of Filaria perstans. Cas
tellani regarded the trypanosome, like
the filaria, as a mere accidental con
comitant of sleeping sickness, the
cause of which he considered to be
the bacterial streptococcus which he
had so frequently found to be present.
Naturally enough, Bruce was im
pressed by the fact that trypanosomes,
of the deadly nature of which he had
had ample experience, had been found,
even once, in the cerebro-spinal fluid
of sleeping-sickness patients; and he
immediately set to work to make a
thorough search for this parasite in
all the cases of sleeping sickness then
under observation at Entebbe. He
generously allowed Castellani to take
part in the investigation, which
resulted in the immediate discovery
of the trypanosome in the cerebro
spinal fluid of twenty cases, out of
thirty - four examined, of negroes
afflicted with the disease; whilst in
twelve negroes free from sleeping
sickness the trypanosome could not
be found in the cerebro-spinal fluid.
Castellani returned to Europe three
weeks after Bruce’s experiments were
commenced, and announced the dis
covery.
Bruce continued his work in Uganda
�100
THE SLEEPING- SICKNESS
until the end of August, 1903, having
been joined there by Colonel Greig of
the Indian Army, who continued the
work of the Royal Society’s com
mission after Bruce left. Other
valuable observations were carried
out by various medical men officially
connected with the Uganda Protec
torate. Bruce soon showed that in
every case of sleeping sickness, when
examined with sufficient care, the
trypanosome parasite is found to be
present in the cerebro-spinal fluid.
He also showed that it was absent from
that fluid in all negroes examined who
were not afflicted with the disease,
but made the very important discovery
that the trypanosome is present in the
blood (not the cerebro-spinal fluid) of
twenty-eight per cent, of the popula
tion in those areas where sleeping
sickness occurs, the persons thus
affected having none of the symptoms
of sleeping sickness, but being either
perfectly healthy or merely troubled
with a little occasional fever. It was
found in these cases, even in some
Europeans, that the earlier presence
of the trypanosome in the blood was
followed by its entry into the cerebro
spinal lymphatics, and by the fatal
development of sleeping sickness.
As already indicated, it was found
by Bruce, on recording the cases of
sleeping sickness brought into or
reported in Entebbe, that there were
certain “ sleeping-sickness areas ” and
other areas free from sleeping sickness.
The theory now took shape in Bruce’s
mind that the trypanosome first gets
into the blood, and then, after a time,
makes its way into the cerebro-spinal
system, only then producing its deadly
symptoms. Very generally, when once
in the blood, the trypanosome multi
plies itself, and sooner or later—
apparently, in some cases, evBn after
two or three years—gets into the
cerebro-spinal fluid. It is probable
that it may sometimes be destroyed
by natural processes in the human
body before this final stage is reached;
and thus the infected person may
recover and escape the deadly phase
of the disease. But nothing certain is
known, as yet, on this head. It was
shown that the trypanosome is found
alive and in large quantity in the
lymphatic glands, especially those in
the region of the neck, in infected
persons. These glands were known
to be enlarged in persons suffering
from the disease.
Colonel Bruce’s next step was to
ascertain the mode in which the
trypanosome is introduced into the
blood. Naturally he looked for a
kind of tsetze fly, such as carries the
trypanosome in the nagana disease of
horses and cattle already studied by
him in Zululand. It is a fact that
the Glossina morsitans and Glossina
pallidipes, which are the tsetze flies
of the “ fly districts ” where nagana
disease is rife, are unknown *in Central
or Western Africa; and also it is a
fact that no tsetze fly had been
observed in the neighbourhood of the
Victoria Nyanza when Colonel Bruce
began his enquiries. He employed,
through the good-will of the native
chiefs and rulers, a large number of
natives to collect flies throughout the
country forming a belt of twenty or
thirty miles around the north of the
lake. Many thousands of flies were
thus brought in, and the localities
from which they came carefully noted.
�THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
101
Among these flies Colonel Bruce were ascertained to be liable to
recognised a tsetze fly ; and when the infection of the sleeping-sick
these collections were received at the ness trypanosome when this was
Natural History Museum in London, introduced by means of injection
it was at once determined by Mr. through a syringe. Such monkeys
Austen, the assistant in charge of the were found to develop the chief
collections of Diptera (or two-winged symptoms of sleeping sickness, and
flies), that the Uganda tsetze fly was ultimately died of the disease, their
not the same species as that of Zulu- cerebro-spinal fluid being invaded by
land and the. fly country, but a distinct the parasites. Accordingly it was
species previously known only on the possible to use monkeys as test
West Coast and the Congo basin, and animals. It was found by Colonel
described by the name Glossina pat- Bruce that tsetze flies (Glossina pal
palis. The story thus developed pates) which had been made to bite
itself : the trypanosome of sleeping infected negroes could carry the infec
sickness is probably carried by this tion to the monkeys; and it was also
West Coast tsetze fly just as the found that even when a number of
trypanosome of nagana is carried in tsetze flies not specially prepared
the south-east of Africa by the Glossina were allowed to bite a monkey, the
morsitans and pallidipes, the regular latter eventually developed the try
panosome in its blood and cerebro
and original “ tsetze ” flies.
Sleeping sickness thus presented spinal fluid, thus showing that the
itself as a special kind of human tsetze flies, as naturally occurring in
tsetze-fly disease. To test this hypo the country around Entebbe, contain,
thesis, Colonel Bruce pursued two many of them, the trypanosome ready
very important and distinct lines of to pass from the fly to a human or
enquiry. In the first place, he found simian victim, when casually bitten
that those places oh his map which by the fly.
Experiments such as these of infec
were marked as “ sleeping-sickness
areas ” were precisely those places tion by the fly, and the use of monkeys
from which the collected flies included in the research, require very great care ;
specimens of tsetze fly, whilst he and it was quite reasonable to ask
found that there were no tsetze flies that they should be repeated and
in the collections of flies brought in most carefully checked before they
by the natives from the regions where were considered as demonstrative and
absolutely certain. It may now be
there was no sleeping sickness.
His second test inquiry consisted in considered as practically certain that
ascertaining whether the tsetze flies of the sleeping sickness is due to the
Uganda are actually found, experi presence in the cerebro-spinal fluid of
mentally, to be capable of carrying quantities of a minute parasite, the
the trypanosome from one infected Trypanosoma Gambiense, which is
person to another. Bor this purpose carried from man to man by the
it was necessary to make use of palpalis tsetze fly, which sucks it up
monkeys, certain species of which I from the blood of an infected individual
�102
THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
and conveys it to previously uninfected gnat, in the interior of which it/iultiindividuals. The natives in Uganda1 plies by a process of sexual conjugation.
lie about and sleep under the shade of At the same time the reader who is
trees where the tsetze flies are espe interested in sleeping sickness will
cially abundant; and they are quite probably desire to know more about
indifferent to the bites of flies of one the nature of the tsetze flies and some
kind and another.
further details as to the parasite spoken
It is the dislike to the mere touch of as trypanosome.
/
of a fly, still more to its bite, which
The tsetze flies form a genus called
has protected Europeans almost en by Wiedemann Lin 1830) \ Grlossina.”
tirely from the sleeping sickness. They are only found in Africa; and
Unfortunately there is no immunity some seven species1 in all ar(> known.
for Europeans in the matter; and the *They are little bigger than a common
existence of many cases of white house-fly, and much like it it colour
people infected with the trypanosome, (Fig. 48). They differ :n appearance
who have ultimately died in England from the house-fly in the fact that the
or elsewhere in Europe from sleeping wings, when the insect is at rest, are
sickness contracted through the bite parallel to one another, and slightly
of a fly in Africa, is abundant proof overlap in the middle line, instead of
that there is not, as has been supposed, being to a small extent divergent at
any special freedom from the disease their free extremities. The bite, like
for white people.1
that of all flies, is rather a stab than
The foregoing description of the a bite, and is effected by a beak-like
nature and mode of the infection of process of the head, the blood of the
sleeping sickness will not cause any animal pricked in this way being
astonishment to the layman of the drawn into the fly’s mouth by a
present day who knows anything of sucking action of the gullet. The
recent medical science. We are all tsetze flies appear to be especially
familiar with the danger of fly-bites, greedy, and are said to gorge them
even in this country, where deadly selves to such an extent that the
bacteria are occasionally carried by blood taken in from one animal over
biting flies, such as the horse-flies, flows the gullet, and so contaminates
into the human subject; and nowadays the wound inflicted by the fly on the
everyone is more or less familiar with next animal it visits. It is at the
the discovery of the minute blood present moment assumed very generally
parasite which causes malaria or ague that this is the way in which infection
and is carried by a particular kind of is produced. But it is not at all
1 Only last year (1905) Lieut. Tulloch, of improbable that the trypanosome
the Army Medical Department, who with undergoes some kind of multiplication
Professor Minchin was engaged in carrying
on further researches for the Royal Society and change of form when sucked into
on the sleeping sickness at Entebbe in the tsetze fly, as happens in the case
Uganda, became infected by the trypano
some, probably through an unobserved bite
by a tsetze fly, and died of the disease soon
1 [Now (1912) eleven species are distin
after his return to England.
,guished.}
�THE SLEEPING- SICKNESS
of the malaria parasite when swallowed
by the Anopheles gnat. No such change
has yet been discovered in regard to
the trypanosome of sleeping sickness;
but it cannot be said that the matter
has been exhaustively studied, or that
a negative conclusion is justified.1
As to the parasite itself—the trypa
nosome—a long and very interesting
story has now to be told. The first
blood-parasite ever made known to
naturalists and medical men was that
to which Gruby, in 1843, gave the
name Trypanosoma sanguinis.
He
found it in the blood of the common
frog. We have here reproduced a
Fig.
48.
Tsetze flies—Glossina morsitans—magnified two
diameters. This is the “fly” of the nagana or
horse and cattle disease of South Africa. The
Glossina palpalis, which carries the Trypanosoma
Gambiense, causing sleeping sickness, is very closely
similar to it in appearance.
figure of this original trypanosome
(fig. 49). Similar parasites had been
seen, but not named, in the blood of
fishes. These trypanosomes are all
1 Professor Minchiu investigated this subject
during 1905 in Uganda, whither he went on
behalf of the Tropical Diseases Committee of
the Royal Society. He did not discover
anything corresponding to the development
of the malarial parasite in the gnat, but his
investigations are not yet brought to a con
clusion (December, 1906). [Later investi
gations by French and German observers
—especially those of Kleiner—have recently
demonstrated that there is such a phase of
development and multiplication of the try
panosome of sleeping sickness in the body of
the tsetze fly.]
103
very minute and of a somewhat elon
gated form, a fair average length being
one thousandth of an inch. They are
simple protoplasmic animals, consist
ing of one single nucleated corpuscle.
The protoplasm is drawn out at one
end of the creature into a motile,
undulating thread, and from the point
where this joins the body a mem
branous undulating crest extends along
the greater part of the animal’s length.
There is no mouth, nutrition being
effected by the imbibition of soluble
nutrient matter.
After a long interval Gruby’s trypa
nosome was re-discovered in 1871; and
then several kinds were described in
the blood of tortoises, fishes, and birds.
In 1878 Dr. Timothy Lewis found a
parasite in the blood of rats, at first in
India, and subsequently in the common
rats of London sewers. This parasite
resembles a trypanosome in many
respects (Fig. 46a), but was very pro
perly given a distinct name by Savile
Kent, who called it “ Herpetomonas.”
This name has, however, been dropped;
and the rat’s-blood parasite is spoken
of as a trypanosome. It is the Trypa
nosoma Lewisii, and was the first of
these trypanosomes to be found in the
blood of a mammalian animal. The
Trypanosoma Lewisii of the rat’s blood
seems to do no harm to the rat, in
which it swarms, multiplying itself by
longitudinal fission; nor is it at pre
sent known to produce any trouble in
other animals when transferred to
their blood. Similarly, the frog’s try
panosome seems to exist innocently in
the frog’s blood.
The next trypanosome discovered
(1880) was, however, found in the
blood of camels, horses, and cattle
�104
THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
suffering from a deadly disease known
in India by the name “ surra.” It is
called Trypanosoma Evansii, after the
observer who detected it. Trypano
somes now began to get a bad name,
for the next was discovered in animals
afflicted by a North African disease
known to French veterinaries as
“dourine.”
This trypanosome was
called T. equiperdum.
A
injuring them, just as the rat’s trypa
nosome inhabits the rat’s blood with
out producing disease; and that it is
only when the trypanosome is carried
from these natural wild “hosts” to
domesticated animals introduced by
man, such as horses, asses, cattle, and
dogs, that disease results. The Wild
animals are “ immune ” to Bruce’s
trypanosome; the introduced animals
Fig. 49.
The earliest discovered Trypanosome, described by Gruby, in 1843, as Trypanosoma sanguinis, and
It was^not 'no^edSin
Wh°
figure of it in the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science in that year.
A little later—namely, in the year
1895—came Bruce’s discovery of a try
panosome associated with a tsetze fly
in the production of the terrible nagana
disease of the “fly-belts” of South
Africa, which renders whole territories
impassable for horses or cattle (Fig.
46b). The remarkable and important
observation was made by Bruce that
this trypanosome (known as T. Brucei)
inhabits the blood of big game without
are poisoned by the products of its
growth and fissile multiplication in
their blood.
Since Bruce’s researches on nagana,
a trypanosome, T. equinum (Fig. 46d),
has been discovered in the horse
ranches of South America, where it
causes deadly disease, the mal de
caderas, among the collected .horses •
and a curiously large-sized trypano
some has been found by Theiler in the
�105
THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
blood of cattle in the Transvaal.1
Down to a recent date no trypano
some Jiad been found in the blood of
man ; and indeed it is almost certain
that none of the kinds hitherto men
tioned can survive in his blood. But
in 1902 Dutton discovered a trypano
some in the blood of a West African
patient; and a few other cases were
noted. This trypanosome of human
blood was called by Dutton T. Gambiense. It was not found to be con
nected with any serious symptoms, a
little fever being the only disturbance
noted. It now, however, appears that
this trypanosome in the blood is the
preliminary stage of the infection
which ends in sleeping sickness ; and,
as we have seen, in a population seri
ously attacked by sleeping sickness, as
is that of Uganda, as many as 28 per
cent, of the people have trypanosomes
in their blood.
There is no ground at present known
for distinguishing Dutton’s T. Gambiense of human blood from that which
Bruce has found to be so terribly
abundant in Uganda, and to be the
cause of sleeping sickness. Indeed,
all the trypanosomes of the blood of
the larger mammalia are singularly
alike in appearance; and the figure
which is here given (Eig. 50) of the
trypanosome of sleeping sickness (I7.
Gambiense) might, with very slight
modification, serve to represent the T.
Evansii of surra disease, the T. Brucei
1 [The number of kinds of trypanosome
known has been greatly increased during the
period 1906-1911, and diseases produced
by them have been described. Only one
additional kind producing a disease in man has
been discovered—namely, in Brazil, where it is
carried into the human body by the bite of
an enormous species of bug which infests the
dwellings of country-folk.]
of nagana disease, or the T. equinum of
the South American mol de caderas.
A most characteristic feature, which
has been made out by the careful study
of those trypanosomes by means of
colouring reagents and very high
powers of the microscope, is that,
whilst there is a large granular nucleus,
there is also a small body at the
anterior end of the animalcule which
readily stains, and is placed at the end
of the root (so to speak) of the vibratile flagellum or free thread. This
smaller nucleus has been variously
Fig.
50.
Trypanosoma Gambiense, from the blood of men
suffering from the early symptoms of sleeping
sickness. A, after Bruce and Navarro; B, after
CasteUani. They show a large oval nucleus (drawn
as a black mass), and a small black ” micronucleus,”
or “ blepharoplast ” in front.
called the “micronucleus,” the “ centrosome,” and the “ blepharoplast.”
It is identical with a structure simi
larly placed in non-parasitic micro
scopic animals to which Trypanosoma
is undoubtedly related. We find it in
the phosphorescent noctiluea of our
seas, and in various animalcules called
“ Elagellata.”
The creature drawn in our Eig. 50 is,
then, the typical trypanosome. It is
this which the medical investigator
looks for in his human or animal
patients; it is this which he has
regarded as the sign and proof of
�106
THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
infection. Experiments have shown
that, though so much alike in appear
ance in the different diseases we have
named, yet each trypanosome has its
own properties. Human blood-serum
is poisonous to one and not to another;
an animal immune to one is not
immune to another. At present ,no
treatment has been discovered which
will destroy the parasites when once
they have effected a lodgment, or act
as an antidote to the poison which they
produce in the infected animal or man.1
The Trypanosome (T. eauiperdum) of the
disease called “Dourine,” as seen alive in the
blood of a rat, eight days ofter inoculation.
a, the actively -wriggling corkscrew-like para
sites; b, the blood-corpuscles of the rat. This
figure, of comparatively low magnification, gives
an indication of the relative size of the parasites
and the blood corpuscles.
The blood-corpuscles are about j o cnrth of an
inch each in diameter.
always be remembered that we are
liable to confuse two different con-*1
ditions under this one term.
An
animal may be said to be immune to
a blood-parasite because that parasite
is actually unable to live in its blood.
On the other hand, an animal is often
said to be immune to a parasite when
the parasite can and does flourish in its
blood or tissues, but produces no poi
sonous effect. A more precise nomen
clature would describe the attacked
organism in the first case as “ repel
lent,” for it repels the parasite alto
gether; in the secondcaseas “tolerant,”
for it tolerates the presence and mul
tiplication of the parasite without
suffering by it.
We have yet to learn a good deal
more as to the repulsion and the tole
ration of the trypanosome parasites
by mammals and man. Still more
have we to learn about the life-history
of the trypanosome. At the moment
of writing absolutely nothing has been
ascertained as to the life-history of the
trypanosomes of mammalian blood
except that they multiply in the blood
by longitudinal fission.1 Our ignorance
about them is all the more serious
since other trypanosomes, discovered
by Danilewsky in birds, have been
studied, and have been shown to go
through the most varied phases of
multiplication and change of size and
shape, including a process of sexual
fertilisation like that of the malaria
But the fact that in some cases an
animal may become immune to the
attack of the parasite which usually is
deadly to its kind gives hope of an
eventual curative treatment for trypa
nosome infection; as does also the fact
that the serum of some animals acts
2 [Since the above was written there has
as a poison to trypanosomes which
been very great activity in microscopic re
flourish in other animals.
searches on this matter, and a great deal of
With regard to immunity, it must valuable knowledge has been obtained as to
1 [Though the injection of certain prepara
tions of arsenic, of antimony, and of mercury
have in a few cases been followed by recovery.)
the history of several mammalian trypano
somes and their multiplication in the bodies
of fleas, lice, and bugs, by which they are
carried from one victim to another.)
�THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
parasite, to which, indeed, it now seems
certain the trypanosomes are very
closely allied.
It is to; Dr. Schaudinn1 that we owe
a knowledge of some most extraordinary and important facts with regard
to the trypanosomes parasitic in the
blood of the little stone-owl of
southern Europe (Athene noctua).
These facts are so remarkable that,
Were Dr. Schaudinn not known as a
very competent investigator of micro
scopic organisms, we should hesitate to
accept them as true. Supposing as is
107
this chapter, the British Government
has no staff of public servants trained
to deal with the world-wide problems
of sanitation and disease which neces
sarily come with increasing frequency
before the puzzled administrators of
our scattered Empire. There is no
provision for the study of the nature
and history of blood-parasites in this
country—that is to say, no provision of
laboratories with the very ablest and
exceptionally-gifted investigators at
their head.1 We play with the pro
vision of an adequate army, officers,
\
Fig. 53.
Fin. 82.
5%.—Trypanosoma Ziemanni, from the gut of the gnat (Oulex), having been sucked in with the
btood of the owl (.Athene noctud). A, fertilised vermiform stage. B, multiplication of nucleus. C,
elongation and coiling, with increase of nuclei (after Schauamn).
frriTn
rniledformof
Fig. 53.—Minute neutral Trypanosomes in the gut of the gnat liberated fiom the coiled toim oi
Fig. 52, C (after Schaudinn).
Fig.
/not improbable, that similar facts can
be shown in regard to the trypano
somes of mammalian blood, the conclu
sions which our medical investigators
have based upon a very limited know
ledge of the form and life-history of
the trypanosomes occurring in diseases
such as sleeping sickness, surra, and
Bagana are likely to be gravely modified,
and practical issues of an unexpected
kind will be involved.
As has already been pointed out in
and equipment to fight disease which
annually destroys hundreds of thou
sands of our people, much as barbarous
1 Since this was written a professorship of
Protozoology has, with the assistance of the
Colonial Office, been established in the Uni
versity of London. This is a first step towards
a recognition of the duty of the State in this
matter. [Professor Minchin, F.R.S., who
has been appointed to this post, has made
important discoveries, in consequence, by .his
study of the trypasonome of sleeping sick
ness in Uganda, and of the relation of the
rat’s trypasonome to its flea. He has also
been to Rovigno and revised Schaudinn’s
observations on the parasites of the little
1 Dr. Schaudinn died in 1906. He was only owl, confirming some and rejecting others of
Schaudinn’s results.J
35 years of age.
�108
THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
States or bankrupt European kingdoms
play with the provision of an ordinary
army and navy. Their forces exist on
paper, or even in fact, but have no
ammunition, no officers, and no infor
mation, and there is no pay for the
soldiers or sailors. Dr. Schaudinn, on
the other hand, carried on his researches
as an officer of the German Imperial
Health Bureau of Berlin; and the
F.
Fig. 54.
A, B, C, D, elongated spiral forms of Try
panosoma Ziemanni (some intertwined) developed
from those of Fig. 53—showing transverse division,
nucleus, and blepharoplast.
E, F, pear-shaped forms resulting from the
contraction of forms like A; G, a cluster of very
minute individuals.
These forms are observed in the gnat and also
in the blood of the owl, into which they pass when
the gnat bites that bird, and were supposed by
Schaudinn to give rise to the large male and female
trypanosomes seen in Fig. 55 (after Schaudinn)
[though this conclusion is not at the present
moment (1911) accepted].
account of them was published in the
official Report of that important depart
ment of the German Imperial Adminis
trative Service three years ago.
It is not possible here to give a full
report on Dr. Schaudinn’s work ; but
it appears that he has studied two
distinct species of trypanosome, both
occurring side by side in the blood of
the little stone-owl, and already seen
but incompletely studied by Danilewsky
and Ziemann. The second of the two
species of trypanosome is in some
respects the more remarkable. Schau
dinn calls it Trypanosoma Ei&manni;
and from the figures which are here
given (Figs. 4, 5, 6, and 7), copied from
his article, with the explanations below
the figures, the reader will at once see
what an extraordinary range of form
and mode of multiplication is presented
by this one species of trypanosome.
Space will not permit us to comment
on these various phases beyond noting
how assuredly such forms would
have escaped recognition as belong
ing to the trypanosome history if
seen, before Dr. Schaudinn’s memoir
was printed, by any of our medical
commissioners blindly exploring round
about the diseases caused by trypano
somes in man and mammals.
One very astonishing and revolution
ary opinion announced by Schaudinn
we must, however, especially point out.
Medical men have long been acquainted
with the spirillum, or spiral threads,
discovered by Obermeyer in the blood
of patients suffering from the relapsing
fever of eastern Europe. These were
universally and without question
regarded as Bacteria (vegetable organ
isms), and referred to the genus
“ Spirochaeta ” of Ehrenberg. They
were called Spiro chata Obermeieri ;
and relapsing fever was held to be a
typical case of a bacterial infection
of the blood. It is now held by
Schaudinn that the blood - parasite
Spirochaeta is a phase of a trypano
some (Fig. 54); that it has a large
nucleus and a micronucleus or ble
pharoplast, neither of which is present
in the spiral Bacteria; and, further,
that it alters its shape, contracting so
�THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
as to present the form of minute oval
or pear-shaped bodies, each provided
with a larger and a smaller nucleus
(Fig. 54, E, F). These oval bodies
are often engulfed by the colourless
corpuscles (phagocytes) of the blood;
and it is in the highest degree probable
that such phases of the growth of a
trypanosome have been observed in
some tropical diseases without their
109
parasites, and must lead to important
discoveries in regard to diseases caused
by them in mammals and in man.
The facts that wild game serve as a
tolerant reservoir of trypanosomes for
the infection of domesticated animals
by the intermediary of the tsetze fly,
and that native children in malarial
regions act the same part for the
malarial parasite and mosquito, suggest
Fig. 55.
Trynanosoma Ziemanni, from the blood of the little owl. The stages shown in Figs. 52-54 are
snown m rigs, oz-oa.a-c
passed inside the gnat. The spiral and pear-shaped bodies of Fig. 54 pass from the gnat s proboscis into
the blood of the little owl, and grow there into the large forms here figured. A, B, and C are females,
destined to be fertilised by spermatozoa (see Fig. 21) when swallowed by a gnat. D and B are male
trypanosomes, which will give rise each to eight fertilising individuals or spermatozoa—as shown m
Fig. 56—when swallowed by a gnat.
relation to the spiral forms being
suspected.
The corpuscles lately
described by Leishman, in cases of
a peculiar Indian fever, are very
probably of this nature, as are also
similar bodies recently described in
Delhi sore. On the whole, it may
safely be said that the researches of
Dr. Schaudinn have widely modified
our conceptions as to these blood-
very strongly that some tolerant reser
voir of the sleeping-sickness trypano
some may exist in the shape of a
hitherto unsuspected mammal, bird,
or insect. The investigation of that
hypothesis and the discovery of the
reproductive and secondary forms of
the mammalian trypanosomes are the
matters which now most urgently call
for the efforts of capable medical
�110
THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
officers.1 But we must not be san
guine of rapid progress, since men
of the scientific quality needful for
pursuing these enquiries are not
numerous; and those who exist are
not endowed with private fortunes, as
a rule. At the same time no suffi
ciently serious attempt is made by the
British Government to take such men
into its pay, or to provide for the
training and selection of such officers.2
The relations of parasites to the
Fig. 56.
Mule Trypanosoma Ziemanni, giving rise by
nuclear division to eight spermatozoa or micro
gametes. From the stomach of the gnat (Culex).
Each of these penetrates and fuses with the
substance of a female trypanosome, swallowed at
the same time or already taken in by the gnat.
The fertilised animalcule is the vermiform motile
stage of Fig. 52, A; and so we return to the startingpoint of the cycle (after Sohaudinri).
organisms upon or in which they are
parasitic, and the relation of Man,
once entered on the first steps of his
career of civilisation, to the world of
parasites, form one of the most
1 [The life-history of the insects which
carry disease-producing trypanosomes is also
most important, and often difficult to ascer
tain. It is not yet known what insect carries
the parasites which produce horse-diseases,
and it is now thought probable that other
flies than Glossina may in some districts
carry the trypanosome of sleeping sickness.]
2 gee footnote on p. 107.
instructive and fascinating chapters
of natural history. It cannot be fully
written yet, but already some of the
conclusions to which the student is
led in examining this subject have
far-reaching importance and touch
upon great general principles in an
unexpected manner.
Before the arrival of Man—the
would-be controller, the disturber of
Nature — the adjustment of living
things to their surrounding conditions
and to one another has a certain
appearance of perfection. Natural
selection and the survival of the
fittest in the struggle for existence
lead to the production of a degree of
efficiency and harmonious interaction
of the units of the living y-orld which,
being based on the inexorable destruc
tion of what is inadequate and
inharmonious as soon as it appears,
result in a smooth and orderly working
of the great machine, and the con
tinuance by heredity of efficiency and
a high degree of individual perfection.
Parasites, whether microscopic or
of larger size, are not, in such circum
stances, the cause of widespread disease
or suffering. The weakly members of
a species may be destroyed by parasites,
as others are destroyed by beasts of
prey; but the general community of
the species, thus weeded, is benefited
by the operation. In the natural
world the inhabitants of areas bounded
by sea, mountain, and river become
adjusted to one another ; and a balance
is established. The only disturbing
factors are exceptional seasons, un
usual cold, wet, or drought. Such
recurrent factors may from time to
time increase the number of the
weakly who are unable to cope witlM
�THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
the invasions of minute destructive
parasites, and so reduce, even to
extermination, the kinds of animals or
plants especially susceptible to such
influences. But anything like the
recurring epidemic diseases of parasitic
origin with which civilised man is
unhappily familiar seems to be due
either to his own restless and ignorant
activity or, in his absence, to great
and probably somewhat sudden geo
logical changes—changes of the con
nections, and therefore communica
tions, of great land areas.
It is abundantly evident that animals
or plants which have, by long seons
of selection and adaptation, become
adjusted to the parasites and the
climatic conditions and the general
company (so to speak) of one con
tinent may be totally unfit to cope
with those of another; just as the
Martian giants of Mr. H. G. Wells,
though marvels of offensive and defen
sive development, were helpless in the
presence of mundane putrefactive bac
teria, and were rapidly and surely
destroyed by them. Accordingly, it is
not improbable that such geological
changes as the junction of the North
and South American continents, of
North and South Africa, and of various
large islands and neighbouring con
tinents, have, in ages before the advent
of man, led to the development of
disastrous epidemics. It is not a
far-fetched hypothesis that the dis
appearance of the whole equine race
from the American continent just
before or coincidently with the advent
of man—a region where horses of all
kinds had existed in greater variety
than in any other part of the world—
is due to the sudden introduction, by
111
means of some geological change, of a
deadly parasite which spread as an
epidemic and extinguished the entire
horse population.
Whatever may have happened in
past geological epochs, by force of
great changes in the connections of
land-surfaces which brought the adap
tations of one continent into con
tact with the parasites of another,
it is quite certain that Man, proud
Man, ever since he has learnt to build
a ship, and even before that, when he
made up his mind to march aimlessly
across continents till he could go no
further, has played havoc with himself
and all sorts of his fellow-beings by
mixing up the products of one area
with those of another. Nowhere has
Man allowed himself—let alone other
animals or even plants—to exist in
fixed local conditions to which he or
they have become adjusted. With
ceaseless restlessness he has introduced
men and beasts and plants from one
land to another. He has constantly
migrated, with his herds and his horses,
from continent to continent. Parasites,
in themselves beneficent purifiers of
the race, have been thus converted
into terrible scourges and the chronic
agents of disease. Europeans are
decimated by the locally innocuous
parasites of Africa; the South Sea
islanders are exterminated by the com
paratively harmless measles of Europe.
A striking example of the disasters
brought about by Man’s blind dealings
with Nature—disasters which can and
will hereafter be avoided by the aid of
science—is to be found in the history
of the insect phylloxera and the vine.
In America th« vine had become
adjusted to the phylloxera larvae, so
�112
TSE SLEEPING SICKNESS
that when they nibbled its roots the
American vine threw out new root
shoots, and was none the worse for
the little visitor. Man in his blunder
ing way introduced the American vine,
and with it the phylloxera, to Europe;
and in three years half the vines in
France and Italy were destroyed by
the phylloxera, because the European
vines had not been bred in association
with this little pest, and had not
acquired the simple adjusting faculty
of throwing out new shoots.
But it is not only by his reckless
mixing up of incompatibles from all
parts of the globe that the unscientific
man has risked the conversion of
paradise into a desert. In his greedy
efforts to produce large quantities of
animals and plaqts convenient for his
purposes, and in his eagerness to mass
and organise his own race for defence
and conquest, man has accumulated
unnatural swarms of one species in
field and ranch and unnatural crowds
of his own kind in towns and fortresses.
Such undiluted masses of one organism
serve as a ready field for the propaga
tion of previously rare and unimportant
parasites from individual to individual.
Human epidemic diseases, as well as
those of cattle and crops, are largely
due to this unguarded action of the
unscientific man.
A good instance of this is seen in
the history of the coffee plantations of
Ceylon, where a previously rare and
obscure parasitic fungus, leading an
uneventful life in the tropical forests
of that country, suddenly found itself
provided with an unlimited field of
growth and exuberance in the coffee
plantations. The coffee plantations
were destroyed by this parasite, which
has now returned to its pristine
obscurity. Disharmonious, blundering
man was responsible for its brief
triumph and celebrity. Dame Nature
had not allowed the coffee fungus
more than a very moderate scope.
Man comes in and takes the reins;
disaster follows. And there is no
possibility of return to the old regime;
man must make his blunders and
retrieve them by further interference
—by the full use of his intelligence,
by the continually increasing ingenuity
of his control of the physical world,
which he has ventured to wrest from
the old rule of natural selection and
adaptation.
The adjustment of all living things
to their proper environment is one of
great delicacy, and often of surprising
limitation. In no living things is this
more remarkable than in parasites.
The relation of a parasite to the
“ host ” or “ hosts ” in which it can
flourish (often the host is only one
special species, or even variety, of plant
or animal) is illustrated by the more
familiar restriction of certain plants to
a particular soil. Thus the Cornish
heath only grows on soil overlying the
chemically peculiar serpentine rocks of
Cornwall. The two common parasitic
tapeworms of man pass their early
life the one in the pig and the other
in bovine animals. But that which
requires the pig as its first host {Tania
solium) cannot use a bovine animal as
a substitute; nor can the other (Tania
mediocan&llata) exist in a pig. Yet the
difference of porcine and bovine flesh
and juices is not a very patent one ; it
is one of small variations in highly
complex organic chemical substances.
A big earthworm-like stomach-worm
�THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
flourishes in man, and another kind
similar to it in the horse. But that
frequenting man cannot exist in the
horsfi^ nor that of the horse in man.
Simpler parasites, such as are the
moulds, bacteria, and again the blood
parasites, trypanosoma, etc., exhibit
absolute restrictions as to the hosts in
which they can or cannot flourish
without showing specific changes in
their vital processes. Being far simpler
in structure than the parasitic worms,
they have less “ mechanism ” at their
disposal for bringing about adjustment
to varied conditions of life. The
microscopic parasites do not submit
to alterations in the chemical character
of their surroundings without them
selves reacting and showing changed
chemical activities. A change of soil
(that is to say, of host) may destroy
them ; but, on the other hand, it may
lead to increased vigour and the most un
expected reaction on their part in the
production of virulent chemical poisons.
We are justified in believing that
until man introduced his artificially
selected and transported breeds of
cattle and horses into Africa there
was no nagana disease. The Trypano
soma Brucei lived in the blood of the
big game in perfect harmony with its
host. So, too, it is probable that the
sleeping - sickness parasite flourished
innocently in a state of adjustment
due to tolerance on the part of the
aboriginal men and animals of West
Africa. It was not until the Arab
slave raiders, European explorers, and
india-rubber thieves stirred up the quiet
populations of Central Africa, and
mixed by their violence the susceptible
with the tolerant races, that the
sleeping - sickness parasite became a
113
deadly scourge—a “ disharmony,” to
use the suggestive term introduced by
my friend Elias Metschnikoff.
The adjustment of primaeval popu
lations to their conditions has also
been broken down by “ disharmonies ”
of another kind, due to Man’s restless
invention, as explained a few years
ago in the interesting book of Dr.
Archdall Reid on “ The Present Evolu
tion of Man.” Not only does the
human race within given areas become
adjusted to a variety of local parasites,
but it acquires a tolerance of dangerous
drugs, such as alcohol and opium,
extracted by Man’s ingenuity from
materials upon which he operates. A
race thus provided and thus immune,
by its restless migrations, imposes on
unaccustomed races the deadly poisons
to the consumption of which it is itself
habituated. The unaccustomed races
are deteriorated or even exterminated
by the poisons thus introduced.
Infectious disease, it was long ago
pointed out, must be studied from
three main points of view: (1) the
life history and nature of the disease
germ or infective matter; (2) the
infected subject, his repellent or
tolerant possibilities, and his predis
position or receptivity ; (3) the inter
mediary or carrying agents. Whilst
it is true that little or nothing has
been done by the State in acquiring or
making use of knowledge as to the
first and second of these factors, with
a view to controlling the spread of
disease, it is the fact that much has
been done both in the way of investi
gation and administration in relation
to the third factor. The great public
health enquiries and consequent legis
lation in this country, in which
�114
THE SLEEPING SICKNESS
scientific men of the highest qualifica
tions, such as Simon, Farr, Chadwick,
and Parkes, took part during the
Victorian period, have had excellent
results ; to them are due the vast
expenditure at the present day on pure
water, sewage disposal, and sanitary
inspection. But little or nothing has
been done in regard to the first and
second divisions of the subject, in
which the less organised portions of
the British Empire are more deeply
concerned than in waterworks and
sewer - pipes. It is still contested
whether leprosy (which is a serious
scourge in the British Empire, though
expelled from our own islands) is a
matter of predisposition caused by
diet or solely due to contagion ; and
yet it is left to individual practitioners
to work out the problem. The State
prepares vaccine lymph in a cheap
and unsatisfactory way for the use of
its—till recently—compulsorily vacci
nated citizens ; but the State, though
thus interfering in the matter of
vaccine, has spent no money to study
effectively and so to improve the
system of vaccination. Here and
there some temporary and ineffective
enquiry has been subsidised by a
Government office; but there is no
great army of investigators working in
the best possible laboratories, led by
the ablest minds of the day, with the
constant object of improving and
developing in new directions the
system of inoculation.1 Surely if
compulsion, or every pressure short
of compulsion, is justified in enforcing
vaccine inoculation on every British
family, it would be only reasonable
and consistent to expend a million or
so a year in the perfection and
intelligent control of this remedy by
the most skilled investigators. Yet
not a halfpenny is spent by the British
Government in this way. Medicine is
organised in this country by its prac
titioners as a fee-paid profession; but
as a necessary and invaluable branch
of the public service it is neglected,
misunderstood, and rendered to a large
extent futile by inadequate funds and
consequent lack of capable leaders!
The defiant, desperate battle which
civilised Man wages with Nature must
go on ; but Man’s suffering and loss in
the struggle—the delay in his ultimate
triumph—depend solely on how much
or how little the great civilised com
munities of the world seek for increased
knowledge of Nature as the basis of
their practical administration and
government.
1 [Recent progress in our knowledge of
tubercle—the disease caused by the tubercle
bacillus—renders it almost certain that a
system of preventive inoculation will have to
be applied in order to check this diseases.
Sanatoria and abstention from spitting cannot
effect much. The disease is too widely spread
and deeply rooted. It would not be possible
to isolate a fifth of the population, though
isolation would be, as in the case of leprosy,
the effective means of eradicating tubercle.]
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By F. J. Gould.
First Series.
1THE CHURCHES & MODERN THOUGHT.
P. Vivian.
By
CHRISTIANITY AND RATIONALISM ON TRIAL.
By Joseph McCabe, J. M. Robertson, and others.
CONFESSION OF FAITH OF A MAN OF SCIENCE.
By Ernst Haeckel.
THE LEGEND OF CHRIST. By ProfessorViROLLEAUD.
*DO WE BELIEVE? A Brief Exposition of the
Rationalist Faith. By J. A. Hedderwick.
fTHE MARTYRDOM OF FERRER. By Joseph
McCabe.
THE TRUTH ABOUT SECULAR EDUCATION: Its
History and Results. By Joseph McCabe.
SUNDAY OBSERVANCE: Its Origin and Mean
ing. By W. W. Hardwicke, M.D.
* The whole of the above List, excepting those marked with an * or a J, may be had in cloth at is. net.
+ Published at 6d. net (paper).
t Published in cloth at is. 6d. net.
London: WATTS & CO., 17 JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The kingdom of man
Description
An account of the resource
Edition: New and rev. ed.
Place of publication: London
Collation: x,114, 4 p. : ill. ; 22 cm.
Series title: R.P.A. Cheap Reprints
Series number: No. 50
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. First published, London: Constable, 1907. Printed in double columns. Includes bibliographical references. Issued for the Rationalist Press Association, Limited. Publisher's advertisements on four pages at end, also inside and on back cover.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Lankester, E. Ray (Edwin Ray) [1847-1929]
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Watts & Co.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1912
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N435
Subject
The topic of the resource
Anthropology
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The kingdom of man), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Human Beings-Origins
NSS