THURSDAY, JULY 31, 1879

NOTWIT

THE NEW NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM [OTWITHSTANDING the delay caused by discussions on the Zulu campaign and the Army Discipline Bill, the Civil Service Estimates must shortly come before the House of Commons, and an opportunity will be given for obtaining from the Government some explanation of the course they propose to adopt with regard to the administration of the New Museum of Natural History. As will be seen by the memorial, of which we gave a copy some weeks ago, the Council of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, in accordance with the resolution adopted by the Association at the Dublin meeting, have strongly urged the pressing importance of this question upon the Government. Naturalists, we believe, are one and all of the same mind on this subject, but owing to the many important political questions of the day, and to the general ignorance of, or we may perhaps say, indifference to, the true wants of science, find it very difficult to get their wishes attended to. Their general opinion upon the British Museum question may, we believe, be shortly stated as follows.

The dominant idea, as we all know, of the Founders of the British Museum was the library. The collections of natural history and antiquities which have been added to it during the past fifty years have always been regarded as entirely subordinate, and not-to-be-too-much-encouraged parts of the general scheme. The executive officer of the whole institution has always been the "principal librarian," trained up in the book department, and having his great aim and object to make that department as perfect as possible. Some years ago, in obedience to pressure from without, an eminent naturalist was made "superintendent" of the four sections of the museum which relate to natural history, namely, zoology, botany, geology, and mineralogy, but care was taken to give him no real power, and his authority, we believe, has remained completely nominal up to the present day. The "superintendent of the natural history departments" has never been allowed to interfere in any way with the important functions of the principal librarian, in whom the administrative power of the whole of the Museum is vested. Now fifty years ago, in the infancy of natural history in this country, such an arrangement as this might have answered very well, but with the gigantic strides that science has made of late years, it is not likely that naturalists will be content to allow the great National Museum of the country to continue to be governed by an individual of no scientific attainments whatever, and to be entirely subordinated to the predominant interests of the Public Library. When the Royal Commission on Science was appointed in 1872, and the question of the British Museum came before it, the grievances of the naturalists found vent, and the systematic injustice with which this department of the Museum had always been treated was fully exposed. After taking full evidence on this subject, the Royal Commission came to the conclusion that the objections raised to the present system of government of the natural history collections were "well founded," and were "unable to discover that the system is attended by any compensating advantages." The Royal Commission VCL. XX.-No. 5c9

recommended consequently that the opportunity should be taken of the proposed removal of these collections into the new building at South Kensington, to separate them at the same time entirely from the control of the trustees and to place them under the rule of a director, who should be responsible to one of the Ministers of State. It might have been well supposed that such a recommendation, coming as it did from a Royal Commission composed of some of the leading scientific authorities of the country, and backed by the universal opinion of naturalists, would not have been ignored. But such is the apathy displayed by our Government, when questions merely of scientific interest are at stake, that the recommendation appears to have been entirely overlooked. At the fag end of last session the trustees of the British Museum were permitted to pass an act enabling them to move the natural history collections to South Kensington without making any changes whatever in the mode of their administration, and not a single member of the Legislature appears to have raised his voice against this summary mode of dealing with the question.

Unless something can be done to upset the conclusion thus arrived at, it is obvious that the evils so loudly complained of during the stay of the natural history collections in Bloomsbury will accompany them in their migration to South Kensington. The library at Bloomsbury will continue to be regarded as the main business of the fifty trustees, and the natural history at South Kensington will, as of old, be starved in order to feed the wants of the more favoured institution. Besides this, many absurd laws and antiquated regulations exist in the British Museum which it would be highly inexpedient to introduce into a new institution, and which can only be got rid of by a complete change of the ruling powers.

It is said that the trustees of the British Museum, having had the memorial of the British Association pressed upon their attention by the Treasury, are prepared to make certain concessions as regards the management of the New Museum at South Kensington. But in the face of the strong recommendations of the Royal Commission we do not believe that any arrangement of this character will be deemed satisfactory.

In fact, the only hope of good government for the new Museum of Natural History lies in its entire separation from the unnatural foster-sister with which it has been hitherto reared. Every man of science will, we think, agree with the Duke of Devonshire's Commission in considering that natural history has now full claims to a separate maintenance, and will render thanks to the Council of the British Association for their efforts to impress the importance of the recommendations of that Commission upon Her Majesty's Government.

BRAIN AND MIND

The Relations of Brain and Mind. By Henry Calderwood, LL.D., Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1879.)

THE object of this work, Prof. Calderwood says in his preface, "is to ascertain what theory of mental life is warranted on strictly scientific evidence."

"The order followed is to consider, first, the latest

P

laborious methods of anatomical and physiological research has the human race become aware of the physical conditions of sensory impressions and motor activity" (p. 212).

So far, therefore, as personal experience is concerned, Prof. Calderwood might have equally well relied on it for asserting that sensation and voluntary motion are independent of sensory and motor nerve structures, as for his assertion that mental operations are distinct from the action of brain.

That we are in ignorance of the physical processes underlying many special psychical manifestations may be admitted without invalidating the general fact of their correlation, otherwise clearly established. But to make ignorance on the one side the basis of very positive statements on the other, is to say the least extremely rash. We may not know how or under what collocations of nerve cells and nerve structures subjectivity becomes apparent; but for Prof. Calderwood to exclude it in his definition of the properties and modes of activity of nerves and nervecentres, and then to argue that personal experience demonstrates it to be something beyond and above, is to beg the whole question.

He very ingenuously estimates the true value of such an argument in a passage, in which he says, "the insufficiency of brain and nerve to perform such work is really involved in the statement of the laws of brain action and the functions identified as belonging to fibres and cells" (p. 1. 122, ital. ours). It would be more logical to reconsider and amend the definition.

Prof. Calderwood's endeavour to prove by scientific evidence the distinct nature and independence of mind, is to attempt the impossible. The utmost that scientific evidence is able to accomplish is to show that cerebral activity and the facts of consciousness are correlated facts insusceptible of further simplification and incapable of being expressed in terms of the other.

Whether we adopt the hypothesis of a duality or a dual unity, is a question of faith, not of scientific demonstration. Science can only deal with the knowable.

But

Considering the very decided stand Prof. Calderwood has taken on the dual theory in the light of the latest researches in cerebral physiology and pathology, it was not unreasonable to expect some new contribution towards the elucidation of the vexed question as to how the immaterial mind can act and be reacted on by the material body. As to whether they are attuned on the pre-established harmony principle or otherwise, Prof. Calderwood gives us no information. On the whole, perhaps, he has in this exercised a wise discretion. whatever theory as to the intimate nature of mind and brain may be adopted, the correlationship between the psychical and the physical must be accepted, not merely in a general sense, but as regards each individual manifestation. Any work will be gladly welcomed, and will do great service, which serves to throw further light on the relations between psychical phenomena and their anatomical and physiological substrata. Prof. Calderwood's work does not help us in this respect:-rather the reverse. While, as regards the facts of brain on the one hand, and the facts of mind on the other, it contains much that is worthy of praise, as regards their relations it is eminently unsatisfactory. D. FERRIER

SOUTH-INDIAN PALEOGRAPHY

Elements of South-Indian Palæography from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century, A.D. By A. C. Burnell. Second Enlarged and Improved Edition. (London: Trübner and Co., 1878.)

A WORK like that before us is one of those which

make us feel proud of our Indian civil servants. Dr. Burnell has made a name for himself in a field of research peculiarly his own, and the appearance of a second edition of his important work on South-Indian Palæography is a matter of congratulation for science. Apart from the historical and linguistic value of the numerous inscriptions here copied and explained, the light thrown by their decipherment upon an obscure chapter in the history of writing is so important that I shall make no excuse for confining myself to this side of Dr. Burnell's labours, the more especially as this is the side to which he has himself devoted the larger part of his book.

Two questions are brought before us at its outset-the date of the introduction of writing into India and the origin of the South-Indian alphabets. The two questions, indeed, hang very closely together, and the one cannot be completely decided without the help of the other. The earliest examples of writing yet discovered in India are the edicts of Asoka, the Constantine of Buddhism, about 250 B.C. They are written in two different alphabets, and the irregularities they present have been supposed to show that writing was still a recent art. The alphabet of the northern inscriptions, which may be termed the North Asoka alphabet, has been proved by Mr. Thomas to have been derived from an Aramaic original, and consequently to have been introduced by Semitic traders from the Persian Gulf. Dr. Burnell claims a similar origin for the South Asoka alphabet, as well as for a third alphabet used only in Southern India, and known as the Vatteluttu or Old Tamil. Of this Dr. Burnell holds that it "is apparently not derived from nor the source of the Southern Asoka alphabet, though in some respects very near to it."

These opinions of Dr. Burnell have met with a vigorous opponent in Mr. Thomas, who maintains that both the southern alphabets were of Dravidian origin, the Sanskrit alphabet itself being an adaptation of some pre-existing Dravidian one. But it will be difficult to resist the force of Dr. Burnell's arguments based upon the earliest forms of the South Indian characters and their likeness to corresponding characters in the Aramaic alphabets of the fourth and third centuries B.C. As he justly observes: "perhaps the most important proof of the Semitic origin of the two South Indian alphabets is the imperfect system of marking the vowels which is common to them both. They have, like the Semitic alphabets, initial characters for them, but in the middle of words these letters are marked by mere additions to the preceding consonant."

If we once admit with Dr. Burnell that the South Indian alphabets have the same Phoenician origin as most of the other alphabets of the world, we must go further with him and derive them "from an Aramaic character used in Persia or rather in Babylonia," The progress of palæography has made it impossible to derive

them directly from Phoenicia, as Benfey wished to do, or from the Himyaritic characters of Yemen as Lenormant alleges. The traditional belief of the Hindus that their ancient literature was handed down by oral recitation alone is thus confirmed, and a remarkable illustration afforded of the powers of a trained memory. The famous maxim that a literature cannot exist without writing must be given up, and the rigid sceptics who refuse to admit that any historical truth can be extracted from oral tradition lose their most formidable argument.

The earliest material used for writing purposes in India seems to have been the bark of the bhurja, which is usually identified with the birch. It is worth notice that our own word book has the same origin as beech, and testifies to a similar employment of the bark of the beech-tree among our Teutonic ancestors. It is probable, however, that the characters of our first "books" were cut upon the soft wood or bark of the beech in the form of runes, and not painted as in the case of the birch books of ancient India. Nevertheless we must not forget that Venantius Fortunatus when alluding to the runes in the seventh century speaks of them as being "painted" on tablets of ash. A. H. SAYCE

OUR BOOK SHELF Parasites; a Treatise on the Entozoa of Man and Animals, including some Account of the Ectozoa. By T. Spencer Cobbold, M.D., F.R.S., F.L.S. (London: J. and A. Churchill, 1879.)

THERE are several groups of animals which from time immemorial have been more or less generally neglected by zoologists, and which have induced but very few amongst the latter to make a specialty of their investigation. As an instance of comparatively highly developed animals to which this remark applies, we need only point to the whole class of cephalopoda, and among the lower animals the entozoa are certainly a good case in point. Apart from the comparative scantiness of the literature treating of these animals, it has the additional disadvantage, in common with much other zoological literature, of being scattered in the numerous volumes of several hundred different scientific serials. Dr. Cobbold has for a long time been held an eminent authority on helminthology, and, as he states in his preface, many hundreds of correspondents, not having ready access to the works of Rudolphi, Diesing, and Dujardin (three great foreign authorities on the subject), have applied to him for identification of parasites they met with in dissections or otherwise. He therefore pronounces the most justified hope that by the work now published a reasonable limit may be placed upon the number of future applicants. What particularly characterises Dr. Cobbold's work is the thoroughly scientific enthusiasm with which it is written, and which in itself is admirable. We cannot help reproducing the closing sentences of the preface, which will give to our readers a true notion of the spirit to which, according to our view, a scientific work ought to owe its origin :

"The study of the structure and economy of a humble parasite brings to the investigator no slight insight into the workings of nature. If these workings cannot at all times be pronounced to be 'good and beautiful,' they must at least be characterised as 'true.' The knowledge of the true especially if that knowledge by its practical applications be calculated to confer substantial benefits upon man and his inferior fellow-creatures-ought to be held in high esteem; but apart from this purely utilitarian view, there remains for the investigator the delight occasioned by the inrush of new scientific ideas. The average mind,

being either essentially commercial or ridiculously sentimental, as the case may be, is totally incapable of comprehending the motive power that animates and guides wholly untinged by the ambitions of wealth and power, the votary of science. The late Prof. Faraday, a man once remarked to me that there were no people so difficult to instruct as those who were ignorant of their own ignorance. It is just these very persons who, when placed in high positions of social, political, or professional trust, most powerfully contribute to check a nation's progress. There are too few genuine workers at science in this country. As one of the rank and file I claim only to have honestly contributed my mite. I should like to see a small army of helminthologists rise up and lay siege to the fortresses at present securely held by thousands of death-dealing parasites." None but an honest and true worker will write such sentences as these; every wellmeaning man of science must concur with Dr. Cobbold in the ideas he thus forcibly expresses. Upon an array of workers of Dr. Cobbold's stamp a nation may justly look with pride.

Turning now to the book itself we need hardly say that the author has executed the task he set himself in a most praiseworthy manner. Apart from a voluminous contribution of original work, he has consulted an almost interminable list of bibliographies on the various kinds of parasites, a work which in itself involved stupendous labour.

The contents are divided into two large groups, the parasites of man occupying the first division, and those of animals the second. Each division is subdivided into several sections, and thus in the first we have descriptions in one section of Trematoda or flukes, in the other those of Cestoda or tapeworms, in the third those of Nematoda or round- and thread-worms, and in the last those of Acantocephala (thorn-headed worms), Suctoria (leeches), and the parasitic forms of Arachnida, Crustacea, Insecta, and Protozoa. In the second division the parasites of animals are arranged according to the respective places of their hosts in systematic zoology. The parasites of Mammalia are subdivided according to the orders in this class, beginning with Quadrumana and ending with Marsupialia and Cetacea. After this the parasites of birds, reptiles, fishes, and invertebrate animals are considered in due course. In relation to the parasites of man, the author gives a great deal of valuable statistical information which must be of special interest to the physician.

book, and congratulate the author warmly upon having Altogether we cannot speak too highly of Dr. Cobbold's so efficiently filled a gap in zoological literature, the existence of which had long been felt by all working naturalists and many medical men.

A Contribution to Agricultural Botany. By A. S. Wilson. (Aberdeen: J. Rac Smith, 1879.) THE author of the small volume before us is already favourably known as an investigator of more than one obscure yet important problem connected with fieldbotany. The text of his present discourse is "turnipsingling." He approaches this subject in a characteristically careful manner, taking into account, as he does, a number of considerations which might easily escape the attention of an ordinary observer or experimenter. The object and manner of his experiments present no novelty; indeed, it seems to us that Mr. Wilson can hardly be fully aware of the immense number of trials which have been made, both in this country and on the Continent, in order to ascertain the best distance apart for swedes and turnips. However, experiments of this order certainly require frequent repetition in order that the influence of season, climate, soil, and manure, may be duly measured. Any one of these conditions may so affect the result as to invalidate a hasty conclusion drawn from one or two years' trials, even when such trials have been conducted, not in one locality, but in several. Mr. Wilson is quite