what combination of the physical influences now existing is most potential in bringing about the supposed transition from the not living to living modes of combination; and therefore it is impossible to say how far the apparent very great difference in condition in certain of these experiments ought to have left its impression upon the living things met with. If we could only be as sure of starting with materials of precisely the same molecular composition, which, however, was impossible, the author was inclined to believe that we might be able to procure definite kinds of organisms, almost as surely as we could now produce different kinds of crystals. He afterwards fully discussed the various possibilities of error in his own experiments, and gave reasons why he thought that none of these sources of fallacy had existed in four of his own experiments which were made in concert with Dr. Frankland. On the Theory of Natural Selection looked at from a Mathematical Point of View. By ALFRED W. BENNETT, M.A., B.Sc., F.L.S. The author gave in his adhesion to that portion of the Darwinian theory which maintains the evolution of species from a common ancestry, but held that that part of the hypothesis which regards natural selection as the prime agent in bringing about these changes rests on a much more debateable basis. The title of Mr. Darwin's great work, 'The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection,' is itself a misnomer, since it only attempts to account for the survival and perpetuation of certain among a number of " spontaneous" variations. Taking the remarkable facts of mimetism, so largely insisted on by Darwinian writers as a bulwark of their theory, the author maintained that this explanation really breaks down at the outset. Two points admitted by all advocates of the principle of natural selection are, that it always acts with extreme slowness, and that every step must be directly of advantage to the species which simulates the outward form of some other species, or of some inanimate object. Proceeding on this basis, and applying mathematical calculation to the solution of the problem, it was attempted to be shown that the earlier steps in the transformation cannot have occurred through the operation of natural selection, because they must be entirely useless to the individual, and that the chances against the accumulation of a sufficient approximation towards the species ultimately mimicked, on which the principle of natural selection could operate, is something like ten millions to one, even when every advantage is thrown into the scale of the natural selectionist. The author then proceeds to show that even Mr. Darwin does not claim for the principle of natural selection the origination of the tendency to variation which is the foundation of all differentiation of species on the hypothesis of evolution. Since, therefore, some other principle, at present unknown to us, originates these variations, what right have we to say that this principle then ceases to act, instead of being the main agent in all the other subsequent changes? Of the laws of variation, Mr. Darwin says, our ignorance is profound. The paper then points out the remarkable analogy that exists between the exhibition of the phenomena of mimetism and the development of instinct. Both faculties are absent in the whole of the vegetable kingdom, very feebly apparent in the Protozoa and Cœlenterata, but slightly in the Mollusca, appear with extraordinary perfection in the Insecta and Arachnida, are comparatively in abeyance among the Pisces and Reptilia, and again strongly developed in the Aves. This parallelism would appear to indicate a closer connexion between mimicry and instinct than has been generally supposed. One of the founders of the theory of natural selection, Mr. A. R. Wallace, displays, in his recently published volume of Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection,' a strange want of faith in his own principle, by denying its potency in the case of the evolution of man from the lower animals, and even in producing the different races of mankind. The same laws, the writer thinks, must be supposed to govern the whole organic world; and if some other principle, connected with man's reasoning powers, must be looked for to account for his raising himself from the brutes, the same principle, connected with the instinct of animals, must be applied to account for their power of developing new species adapted to the circumstances of their environments. In corclusion, the author considered that although the discovery of the law of natural selection marked an era in the history of natural science, and gave a wonderful impulse to original research, the danger now is that the law will be pressed into services which have no claim upon it, and that in the hands of injudicious partisans it will become a hindrance rather than an aid to science, by closing the door against further investigations into other laws which lie behind it. On Protoplasm and the Germ Theories. By GILBERT W. CHILD, M.A., F.L.S. After an examination of the various germ theories which had been put forward, the author said it appeared to him that abiogenesis in some form or another was a necessary consequence of certain other theories which were gaining ground at the present moment, by the Darwinian hypothesis and the theory of evolution. It was hardly conceivable that we could theoretically hold that the original simple forms from which the whole animal and vegetable world had been developed, had sprung into existence out of the regular order of the evolution of the universe. What was called the germ theory of disease threw an interesting light on the question. Zymotic diseases were now generally believed to result from the multiplication and reproduction of germs in the blood of the man or animal affected. The matter to be accounted for was how the disease-germ appeared, disappeared, and afterwards again cropped up in the same district at great intervals of time. If the old theories were to be maintained in their entirety as to the fixity of species, every one of these diseases must have existed somewhere from the beginning. That was a view which was hardly credible, but it was held nevertheless. On the other hand, the hypothesis of the evolution of these germs de novo, by abiogenesis, would account for such phenomena in an intelligible manner. In conclusion, the writer was far from thinking that abiogenesis is proved to take place at the present time. His own experiments, published in the 'Proceedings of the Royal Society,' 1865, did not pretend to prove this. It is quite possible, and indeed probable, that the small moving masses of protoplasm found by Dr. Beale and himself in his experimental vessels might, as suggested by the President in his Address, have resisted the boiling temperature to which the contents of those vessels had been subjected. If this were so, it no doubt nullified the evidence of those experiments so far as they tended towards the solution of the main question at issue; "but if so, it equally nullified the evidence of M. Pasteur's researches, on which the opponents of the doctrine of abiogenesis rested their case. The latter were therefore reduced to this dilemma, either these minute organisms which were found in the experiments of the writer and others can withstand the boiling temperature, or they cannot. In the former case, there is no evidence left on either side; in the latter they must have been produced by abiogenesis. On some of the more Important Facts of Succession in Relation to any Theory of Continuity. By Dr. COBBOLD, F.R.S., F.L.S. The author remarked that for several years past the Biological Section had permitted, if it had not actually encouraged, the reading of papers on the theory of natural selection. The facts he had here selected for exposition were such as represented what might be termed the apparent chronology of the organic series, or, in other words, the ascertained times of the coming and flourishing of the larger animal groups. A true conception of what was or ought to be understood by the expression "equivalencies"-botanical, zoological, or geological-lay at the basis of a correct appreciation of the significance of the records of animal, vegetable, or sedimentary rock distribution throughout all time. Further, he ventured to assert that the grandeur of the formative scheme of Nature, whether testifying to an evolutionary method of production or to a series of creative acts, few or many in number, could only be adequately realized by the naturalist whose powers of allocation and grouping enabled him to grasp the import of those relations. He then proceeded to deal with the facts of succession, describing the various known groups, and glancing at the times of origin and succession of the placental mammals, saying the first thing that the record suggested was the rapidity with which the most divergent groups made their appearance. Of course there was no real basis for an assumption of coeval creation. It might be held, on zoological grounds, that we ought not to separate men and monkeys, but retain them as one under the ordinal title of Primates. He adopted the division of the placental series of Mammalia into twelve groups, not from any rigid belief as to their separate equivalencies, but because they were sufficiently distinctive for practical purposes, and form on the whole perhaps the fairest expression of grouping which our science could at present afford. After dwelling at great length upon the succession of the various groups, he stated that as regarded the highest of all, the placental division, he would only say that, as he understood the doctrine, the strictest demand of the development theory did not require, as was commonly supposed, a lineal descent as between Bimana and Quadrumana; but it was certainly held that either of these groups, as we now know them, might have been separately evolved from more generalized primatal types, the intermediary terms being possibly connected by a long antecedent and far more generalized common progenitor. In that connexion the most advanced evolutionist must own that the assumedly missing tertiary primatals constituted a great and natural bar to the popular acceptance of the theory of descent by natural selection. On the other hand, a multitude of considerations seemed to him to outweigh all the data thrown into the anti-continuity side of the balance. On the Development of Germ-life. By Dr. F. CRACE-CALVERT, F.R.S., F.C.S. The author has been engaged during the last twelve months in a series of researches with the view of determining if the germs of fermentation and putrefaction can be carried any distance from their source of production by a current of atmospheric air, and communicate their decomposing action to a fluid susceptible of undergoing a similar change. To answer this question, he has made many experiments, but will now only give the following details. The first question was, what apparatus should be employed to deprive atmospheric air of the germs it contains. He passed slowly (during four hours) a gallon of air first through a tube 2 feet in length, filled with cotton-wool, and then through another tube, 6 inches long, filled with small fragments of pumice-stone heated to redness. Secondly, air was passed through the same length of cotton-wool, and then through 18 inches of red-hot pumice-stone. The two bulks of air thus purified were made to bubble slowly into pure water, deprived of animal or vegetable life. A drop of each of the fluids was examined under a microscope of 800 diameters, and the following results were obtained : : Water through which air No life. No life. No life. No life. One or two microzymes Having thus found the method of depriving atmospheric air of its life, he cmployed the same purified air to ascertain if he could, as stated above, convey by a current of it the germs produced in one mass of matter into another. To effect this, the purified air was made to bubble through a pint of fluid in an active state of alcoholic fermentation, one of acetic fermentation, one of butyric, and in one containing putrid meat. The results were, that a very small quantity of life was observed under the microscope after several hours in pure water, weak sugar or albumen solution through which the air from the alcoholic or acetic fermentative fluids had passed; but it was in large quantities in the albumen solutions, in which the air had previously bubbled through the putrid fluid and butyric ferment,thus showing that the germs belonging to the vegetable kingdom cannot be conveyed any distance by air in motion, whilst those of the animal kingdom are easily carried. There are many experiments which the author intends publishing, but he limits himself to record only one, in consequence of the light it throws on many of the results published of late on spontaneous generation, viz. that if the albumen of a newly laid egg is mixed with pure distilled water free from life, and the whole exposed to the atmosphere for half an hour, life will be observed, and in an hour or two mycrozyma and vibrios will be found in considerable quantities; therefore no experiment as to the existence of life in fluids is of any value except when air has been excluded, and that the fluid intended for examination has not been exposed for a short time to the atmosphere. The author hopes shortly to present to the Royal Society papers on the "Tenacity of Microscopic Life," "The Special Germs of Putrefaction," "Spontaneous Germination," and, lastly, "On the Germ Theories of Contagious and Infectious Diseases.' On the Controversy on Spontaneous Generation, with new Experiments. By JAMES SAMUELSON. The author discussed at length the present position of the controversy on heterogenesis, or the supposed creation of the lowest form of plants and animals de novo. He first referred to the theological bearing of the subject, which he believed to be overrated. But the author expressed his opinion, resulting from experiments and observations which extended over a long series of years, that those who prefer to adopt the theory of the creation of living forms only from germs already in existence would eventually find their view to be correct. He then proceeded to consider the recent experiments of Dr. Bastian, who believes that he has not only been able to create "protoplasm" by the combination of inorganic materials, as it was hinted possible some time since by Professor Huxley, but that under his hands there had been spontaneously produced from inorganic materials, combined in a manner circumstantially described by him, "truly organized plants and small ciliated infusoria." The author first criticized the terms in which Dr. Bastian had described the results of his experiments, characterizing them as vague, and giving instances of the vagueness. Then he showed how some of them were absolutely adverse to Dr. Bastian's own hypothesis; and finally he proceeded to describe at length a number of experiments of his own, made in June, July, and August last, and to compare them with notes of a series of experiments tried by him in 1863, which left little doubt on his mind that the plant types (mildew or mould) believed by Dr. Bastian to have been spontaneously produced in infusions, really spring from atmospheric germs, which, in some instances, become developed in the open air upon bare rocks and stones, but which the author showed to be present in rainwater fallen from the clouds, and in distilled water exposed to the air. The result of his experiments may be thus briefly epitomized :-In 1863 the author found the same plant types (various stages of mildew) in infusions of orange-juice, cabbagejuice, and pure distilled water exposed to the air; and during the past summer he again found the identical types in infusion of orange-juice, and in water caught in a shower of rain. At both periods, too, he found low animal types in the atmosphere. The author concluded his paper as follows:-"Here I leave to the judgment of men of science the results of my experiments, which any boy possessed of a microscope may repeat as effectually as I have performed them. And if the believers in spontaneous generation still insist that their hypothesis has not been refuted, and that, assuming my observations to be correct, their view of the case has not been fully disproved, I am not prepared to deny this; but, on the other hand, I must be permitted to retort that their experiments have only proved, so far, their inability, notwithstanding all their precautions, to exclude invisible germs from their infusions. As to the mysterious appearance of these microscopical types on their solution in vacuo, what is it compared with the presence of some of the internal parasites of man and the lower animals? and who would have credited twenty years since the story of the wanderings and metamorphoses which those forms undergo before they find their way into the final habitat designed for them by nature ? There is, however, very little chance of the controversy coming to an end at present. It is fascinating and sensational, and so far quite in accordance with the spirit of the age. Nor is it desirable that it should cease, for it is causing microscopical observers to direct their attention more and more to the beginnings of life and to the development of these living types, which are visible only with the aid of the lens; and I know of no subject more worthy of the consideration of biologists." On the Scientific Value of Physical Beauty. By FREDERIC T. MOTT, F.R.G.S. The purpose of this paper was to point out the connexion between the comparative beauty of objects and their rank in the scale of nature; to show that beauty is not bestowed capriciously, but has always a scientific meaning; that it is the index of maturity, of climax, of perfected function, and ought to be taken into account as such in every system of classification. The connexion between beauty and maturity was illustrated by natural facts, and a theoretic reason for it was suggested. On various Alterations of Nutrition due to Nervous Influence. On Apparent Transmission of Abnormal Conditions due to Accidental Causes. By Dr. BROWN SÉQUARD, F.R.S. Contribution to the Migration Theory. By Dr. CATON. This paper contained the results of a series of experiments on the phenomena of inflammation as seen in the transparent membranes of fishes and batrachians, chiefly in reference to the migration of blood-cells from the vessels, described by Addison and Waller, and more recently by Professor Cohnheim. In the experiments on the frog the migration of colourless corpuscles was seen to take place from the vessels of the mesentery, though not in every instance. In the fish, notwithstanding close observation, the escape of blood-cells was never seen. Pus-cells were apparently formed in the tissues during acute inflammation. It was observed that venous congestion did not occur to the same extent as in batrachians and mammals,-possibly accounted for by the venous character of the heart in the fish. In the tadpole migration was seen to take place with the greatest activity whenever any considerable congestion occurred. In fishes and batrachians alike it was found that general fever caused the deposit of white blood-cells along the walls of vessels; and if, as in batrachians, great congestion subsequently occurred, the cells in contact with the wall were seen to migrate, the more readily if the wall of the vessel were thin and delicate, as in the tadpole. On the whole it seemed probable that congestion was the main cause of cellmigration, and that the question whether red or white cells escaped depended merely on the one or the other being in contact with the wall of the congested vessel. Pus-cells appeared not to originate entirely from migrating blood-corpuscles; indeed it seemed possible that the two had no connexion with one another, and were merely accidentally associated: for in these experiments pus-cells had been |