leguminous plants and causes the growth of nodules whilst
assisting the plant in the assimilation of nitrogen: (_a_)
Nodule of the roots of the common 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;
(_d e f_) are magnified 1,500 diameters.]
_Physiology of Plants and Animals._--Since I have not space to do
more than pick out the most important advances in each subject for
brief mention, I must signalize in regard to the physiology of plants
the better understanding of the function of leaf-green or chlorophyll
due to Pringsheim and to the Russian Timiriaseff, the new facts as to
the activity of stomata in transpiration discovered by Horace Brown,
and the fixation of free nitrogen by living organisms in the soil
and by organisms (_Bacillus radicola_) parasitic in the rootlets of
leguminous plants (see fig. 32), which thus benefit by a supply of
nitrogenous compounds which they can assimilate.
Great progress in the knowledge of 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.
Büchner’s final conquest of the secret of the yeast-cell by heroic
mechanical methods--the actual grinding to powder of these already
very minute bodies--first established this, and now successive
discoveries of intracellular ferments 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 accomplishes its own internal life by ferments. Life
thus (from the chemical point of view) becomes a chain of ferment
actions. Another most significant 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 discovered 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 myxœdema, exophthalmic goitre, Addison’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, &c.; the pituitary gland, an extract which is a specific
urinary stimulant. Quite lately the mammalian ovary has been shown by
Starling to yield a secretion which influences the state of nutrition
of the uterus and mammæ. A great deal 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.
[Illustration: FIG. 33.
The continuity of the protoplasm of neighbouring vegetable cells,
by means of threads which perforate the cell-walls. Drawing
(_after_ Gardiner) of cells from the pulvinus of _Robinia_.]
Nerve-physiology has made immensely important advances. There is
now good evidence that all excitation of one group of nerve-centres
is accompanied by the _concurrent inhibition_ 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
concurrently 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.
[Illustration: FIG. 34.
Diagrammatic representation of the structures present in a
typical cell (_after_ Wilson). Note the two centrosomes,
sometimes single.]
The discovery of the continuity of the protoplasm through the walls
of the vegetable cells by means of connecting canals and threads
(see fig. 33) is one of the most startling facts discovered in
connection with plant-structure, since it was held twenty years
ago that a fundamental distinction 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 be
really ‘statocytes,’ and to exert a varying pressure according to the
relations of these parts of the plant to gravity. There is apparently
something 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. Darwin,
Haberlandt, and Nemec.
[Illustration:
FIG. 35.--THE NUMBER OF 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 (_Pellia_)
in the same phase of division, but with the _reduced_ number
of chromosomes--namely, _eight_ in 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 Salamander, showing the
_reduced_ number of chromosomes of the sexual cells--namely,
_twelve_; each is split longitudinally. (From original drawings
by Prof. Farmer and Mr. Moore.)]
A few words must be said here as to the progress of our knowledge of
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 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 reproductive elements--the spermatozoid and the ovum--so that
on union of these two to form the fertilized ovum (the parent cell
of all the tissues), the proper specific number is attained (see
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 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
structure--a nucleated cell. That does not imply that simpler forms
of living matter have not preceded those which we know. We must
assume that something more simple and homogeneous 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 others--have one by one yielded
to improved methods of microscopic examination and proved to be
differentiated into nuclear and extra-nuclear substance.
[Illustration: FIG. 36.
Further stage in the division of the sexual cell drawn in Fig.
35(_e_), showing the _twelve_ chromosomes of the two nuclei of
the sperm-cells resulting from the division (_twelve_ instead of
_twenty-four_).]
The question of ‘spontaneous generation’ cannot be said to have
been seriously revived within these twenty-five years. Our greater
knowledge of minute forms of life, and the conditions under which
they can survive, as well as our improved microscopes and methods
of experiment and observation, have made an end of the 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 minute
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 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 experimental 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 physical 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 measurements--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 distinguished electrician, Mr.
Henry Wilde, F.R.S., a lectureship of Experimental Psychology has
been founded in the University of Oxford, where the older studies
of Mental and Moral Philosophy, Logic and Metaphysics have so
strong a hold, and have so well prepared the ground for the new
experimental development. The German investigators W. Wundt, G. E.
Müller, 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 work of Goldschneider on ‘the
muscular sense,’ of von Frey on the cutaneous sensations, are further
examples of what is being done.
The difficult and extremely important line of investigation, first
scientifically treated by Braid under the name ‘Hypnotism,’ has been
greatly developed by the French school, especially by Charcot. The
experimental investigation of ‘suggestion,’ and the pathology of dual
consciousness and such exceptional conditions of the mind, has been
greatly advanced by French observers.
The older work of Ferrier and Hitzig on the functions of the parts of
the brain has been carried further by Goltz and Munk in Germany, and
by Schäfer, Horsley, and Sherrington in England.
The most important general advance seems to be the recognition that
the mind of the human adult is a social product; that it can only
be understood in relation with the special environment in which it
develops, and with which it is in perpetual interaction. Professor
Baldwin, of Princeton, has done important work on this subject.
Closely allied is the study of what is called ‘the psychology of
groups,’ the laws of mental action of the individual as modified by
his membership of some form of society. French authors have done
valuable work here.
These two developments of psychology are destined to provide the
indispensable psychological basis for Social Science, and for the
anthropological investigation of mental phenomena.
Hereafter, the well-ascertained laws of experimental psychology will
undoubtedly furnish the necessary scientific basis of the art of
education, and psychology will hold the same relation to that art as
physiology does to the art of medicine and hygiene.
There can be little doubt, moreover, of the valuable interaction
of the study of physical psychology and the theories of the origin
of structural character by natural selection. The relation of the
human mind to the mind of animals, and the gradual development of
both, form a subject full of rich stores of new material, yielding
conclusions of the highest importance, which has not yet been
satisfactorily approached.
I am glad to be able to give wider publicity here to some conclusions
which I communicated to the Jubilee volume of the ‘Société de
Biologie’ of Paris in 1899. I there discussed the significance
of the great increase in the size of the cerebral hemispheres in
recent, as compared with Eocene Mammals (see fig. 5), and in Man as
compared with Apes, and came to the conclusion that ‘the power of
building up appropriate cerebral mechanism in response to individual
experience,’ or what may be called ‘educability,’ is the quality
which characterizes the larger cerebrum, and is that which has led to
its selection, survival, and further increase in volume. The bearing
of this conception upon questions of fundamental importance in what
has been called genetic psychology is sketched as follows:
‘The character which we describe as “educability” can be
transmitted; it is a congenital character. But the _results_ of
education can _not_ be transmitted. In each generation they have
to be acquired afresh. With increased “educability” they are more
readily acquired and a larger variety of them. On the other hand,
the nerve-mechanisms 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 development 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 instinct 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 expressed by George H. Lewes
and adopted by George Romanes, namely, that instincts are due to
“lapsed” intelligence. The fact is that there is no community between
the mechanisms 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.’[17]
_Darwinism._--Under the title ‘Darwinism’ 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 twenty-five 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 because
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 variance with his
conclusions. These attempts must, I think, be considered as having
failed. A great deal of valuable work has been done in consequence;
for honest criticism, based on observation and experiment, leads to
further investigation, and is the legitimate and natural mode of
increase of scientific knowledge. Amongst the attempts to seriously
modify Darwin’s doctrine may be cited that to assign a great and
leading importance to Lamarck’s theory as to the transmission by
inheritance of newly ‘acquired’ characters, due chiefly to American
palæontologists 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 by
the valuable work of Mr. Bateson on discontinuous variation; and
lastly, the attempt to assign a great and general importance to
the facts ascertained many years ago by the Abbé Mendel as to the
cross-breeding of varieties and the frequent production (in regard
to certain characters in certain cases) of pure strains rather than
of breeds combining the characters of both parents. On the other
hand we have the splendid series of observations and writings of
August Weismann, who has, in the opinion of the majority of those
who study this subject, rendered the Lamarckian theory of the origin
and transmission of new characters altogether untenable, and has,
besides, furnished a most instructive, if not finally conclusive,
theory or mechanical scheme of the phenomena of Heredity in his book
‘The Germ-plasm.’ Professor Karl Pearson and the late Professor
Weldon--the latter so early in life and so recently lost to us--have,
with the finest courage and enthusiasm in the face of an enormous
and difficult task, determined to bring the facts of variation and
heredity into the solid form of statistical statement, and have
organised, and largely advanced in, this branch of investigation
which they have termed ‘Biometrics.’ Many naturalists throughout the
world have made it the main object of their collecting and breeding
of insects, birds, and plants, to test Darwin’s generalisations and
to expand the work of Wallace in the same direction. A delightful
fact in this survey is that we find Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace
(who fifty years ago conceived the same theory as that more fully
stated by Darwin) actively working and publishing some of the most
convincing and valuable works on Darwinism. He is still alive and
not merely well, but pursuing his work with vigour and ability.
It was chiefly through his researches on insects in South America
and the Malay Islands that Mr. Wallace was led to the Darwinian
theory; and there is no doubt that the study of insects, especially
of butterflies, is still one of the most prolific fields in which
new facts can be gathered in support of Darwin and new views on
the subject tested. Prominent amongst naturalists in this line of
research has been and is Edward Poulton of Oxford, who has handed on
to the study of entomology throughout the world the impetus of the
Darwinian theory. I must here also name a writer who, though unknown
in our laboratories and museums, seems to me to have rendered very
valuable service in later years to the testing of Darwin’s doctrines
and to the bringing of a great class of organic phenomena within the
cognisance of those naturalists who are especially occupied with
the problems of Variation and Heredity. I mean Dr. Archdall Reid,
who has with keen logic made use of the immense accumulation of
material which is in the hands of medical men, and has pointed out
the urgent importance of increased use by Darwinian investigators of
the facts as to the variation and heredity of that unique animal,
man, unique in his abundance, his reproductive activity, and his
power of assisting his investigator by his own record. There are
more observations about the variation and heredity of man and the
conditions attendant upon individual instances than with regard
to any other 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
suggestions, the ‘Present Evolution of Man’ and ‘Principles of
Heredity,’ shown a new path for investigators to follow.
The attempt to resuscitate Lamarck’s views on the inheritance of
acquired[18] characters has been met not only by the demand for
the production of experimental proof that such inheritance takes
place, which has never been produced, but on Weismann’s part by a
demonstration that the reproductive cells of organisms are 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 communicated 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
contradictory 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 which
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 thousands 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 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 character (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 adherents 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 quantitatively 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 generations
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, 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.’[19]
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 transmitted 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 tendency is exceptionally great a
false suggestion of a Lamarckian inheritance can readily result.
This inheritance of ‘variation in tendencies to react’ has a wide
application, and has led me to coin the word ‘educability’ as
mentioned in the section of this address on Psychology.
The principle of physiological selection advocated by 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.
The observations of de Vries--showing that in cultivated varieties of
plants a new form will sometimes assert itself suddenly and attain
a certain period of dominance, though not having been gradually
brought into existence by a slow process of selection--have
been considered by him, and by a good many other naturalists,
as indicating the way in which new species arise in Nature. The
suggestion is a valuable one if not very novel, but a great deal of
observation will have to be made before it can be admitted as really
having a wide bearing upon the origin of species. The same is true of
those interesting observations which were first made by Mendel, and
have been resuscitated and extended with great labour and ingenuity
by recent workers, especially in this country by Bateson and his
pupils. If it should prove to be true that varieties when crossed do
not, in the course of eventual inter-breeding, produce intermediate
forms as hybrids, but that characters are either dominant or
recessive, and that breeds result having pure unmixed characters--we
should, in proportion as the Mendelian law is shown to apply to all
tissues and organs and to a majority of organisms, have before us
a very important and determining principle in all that relates to
heredity and variation. It remains, however, to be shown how far
the Mendelian phenomenon is general. And it is, of course, admitted
on all sides that, even were the Mendelian phenomenon general and
raised to the rank of a law of heredity, it would not be subversive
of Mr. Darwin’s generalisations, but probably tend to the more ready
application of them to the explanation of many difficult cases of the
structure and distribution of organisms.
Two general principles which Mr. Darwin fully recognised appear to
me to deserve more consideration and more general application to the
history of species than he had time to give to them, or than his
followers have accorded to them. The first is the great principle
of ‘correlation of variation,’ from which it follows that, whilst
natural selection may be favouring some small and obscure change in
an unseen group of cells--such as digestive, pigmentary or nervous
cells, and that change a change of selective value--there may be,
indeed often is, as we know, a correlated or accompanying change in a
physiologically related part of far greater magnitude and prominence
to the eye of the human onlooker. This accompanying or correlated
character has no selective value, is not an adaptation--is, in
fact, a necessary but useless by-product. A list of a few cases of
this kind was given by Darwin, but it is most desirable that more
should be established. For they enable us to understand how it is
that specific characters, those seen and noted on the surface by
systematists, are not in most cases adaptations of selective value.
They also open a wide vista of incipient and useless developments
which may suddenly, in their turn, be seized upon by ever-watchful
natural selection and raised to a high pitch of growth and function.
The second, somewhat but by no means altogether neglected, principle
is that a good deal of the important variation in both plants and
animals is not the variation of a minute part or confined to one
organ, but has really an inner physiological basis, and may be a
variation of a whole organic system or of a whole tissue expressing
itself at several points and in several shapes. In fact, we should
perhaps more generally conceive of variation as not so much the
accomplishment and presentation of one little mark or difference in
weight, length, or colour, as the expression of a _tendency to vary_
in a given tissue or organ in a particular way. Thus we are prepared
for the rapid extension and dominance of the variation if once it is
favoured by selective breeding. It seems to me that such cases as
the complete disappearance of scales from the integument of some
osseous fishes, or the possible retention of three or four scales
out of some hundreds present in nearly allied forms, favour this
mode of conceiving of variation. So also does the marked tendency
to produce membranous expansions of the integument in the bats, not
only between the digits and from the axilla, but from the ears and
different regions of the face. Of course, the alternative hairy or
smooth condition of the integuments both in plants and animals is a
familiar instance in which a tendency extending over a large area
is recognised as that which constitutes the variation. In smooth or
hairy varieties we do not postulate an individual development of
hairs subjected one by one to selection and survival or repression.
_Disease._--The study of the physiology of unhealthy, injured, or
diseased organisms is called pathology. It necessarily has an immense
area of observation and is of transcending interest to mankind who
do not accept their diseases unresistingly and die as animals do,
so purifying their race, but incessantly combat and fight disease,
producing new and terrible forms of it, by their wilful interference
with the earlier rule of Nature.
Our knowledge of disease has been enormously advanced in the last
quarter of a century, and in an important degree our power of
arresting it, by two great lines of study going on side by side
and originated, not by medical men nor physiologists in the narrow
technical sense, but by naturalists, a botanist, and a zoologist.
Ferdinand Cohn, Professor of Botany in Breslau, by his own researches
and by personal training in his laboratory, gave to Robert Koch the
start on his distinguished career as a bacteriologist. It is to
Metschnikoff the zoologist and embryologist that we owe the doctrine
of phagocytosis and the consequent theory of immunity now so widely
accepted.
We must not forget that in this same period much of the immortal
work of Pasteur on hydrophobia, of Behring and Roux on diphtheria,
and of Ehrlich and many others to whom the eternal gratitude of
mankind is due, has been going on. It is only some fifteen years
since Calmette showed that if cobra poison were introduced into the
blood of a horse in less quantity than would cause death, the horse
would tolerate with little disturbance after ten days a full dose,
and then day after day an increasing dose, until the horse without
any inconvenience received an injection of cobra poison large enough
to kill thirty horses of its size. Some of the horse’s blood being
now withdrawn was found to contain a very active antidote to cobra
poison--what is called an antitoxin. The procedure in the preparation
of the antitoxin is practically the same as that previously adopted
by Behring in the preparation of the antitoxin of diphtheria poison.
Animals treated with injections of these antitoxins are immune to
the poison itself when subsequently injected with it, or, if already
suffering from the poison (as, for instance, by snake-bite), are
readily shown by experiment to be rapidly cured by the injection of
the appropriate antitoxin. This is, as all will admit, an intensely
interesting bit of biology. The explanation of the formation of the
antitoxin in the blood and its mode of antagonising the poison is
not easy. It seems that the antitoxin is undoubtedly formed from the
corresponding toxin or poison, and that the antagonism can be best
understood as a chemical reaction by which the complex molecule of
the poison is upset, or effectively modified.
The remarkable development of Metschnikoff’s doctrine of phagocytosis
during the past quarter of a century is certainly one of the
characteristic features of the activity of biological science in that
period. At first ridiculed as ‘Metschnikoffism,’ it has now won the
support of its former adversaries.
For a long time the ideal of hygienists has been to preserve man from
all contact with the germs of infection, to destroy them and destroy
the animals conveying them, such as rats, mosquitoes, and other
flies. But it has now been borne in upon us that, useful as such
attempts are, and great as is the improvement in human conditions
which can thus be effected, yet we cannot hope for any really
complete or satisfactory realisation of the ideal of escape from
contact with infective germs. The task is beyond human powers. The
conviction has now been arrived at that, whilst we must take every
precaution to diminish infection, yet our ultimate safety must come
from within--namely, from the activity, the trained, stimulated, and
carefully guarded activity, of those wonderful colourless amœba-like
corpuscles whose use was so long unrecognized, but has now been
made clear by the patiently continued experiments and arguments of
Metschnikoff, who has named them ‘phagocytes.’ The doctrine of the
activity and immense importance of these corpuscles of the living
body which form part of the all-pervading connective tissues and
float also in the blood, is in its nature and inception opposed to
what are called the ‘humoral’ and ‘vitalistic’ theories of resistance
to infection. Of this kind were the beliefs that the _liquids_ of the
living body have an inherent and somewhat vague power of resisting
infective germs, and even that the mere living quality of the
tissues was in some unknown way antagonistic to foreign intrusive
disease-germs.
[Illustration:
FIG. 37. FIG. 38. FIG. 39.
Fig. 37.--Phagocyte or colourless corpuscle of a guinea-pig
in the act of engulphing 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 engulphed. Fig.
39.--The same ten minutes later still, one of the Spirilla is
completely absorbed into the substance (protoplasm) of the
phagocyte. (_From_ Metschnikoff’s book, “Immunity,” kindly
supplied by the Cambridge University Press.)]
The first eighteen years of Metschnikoff’s career, after his
undergraduate course, were devoted to zoological and embryological
investigations. He discovered many important facts, such as the
alternation of generations in the parasitic worm of the frog’s
lung--_Ascaris nigrovenosa_--and the history of the growth from the
egg of sponges and medusæ. In these latter researches 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
known) resemble the well-known amœba, and can take into their soft
substance (protoplasm) at all parts of their surface any minute
particles and digest them, thus destroying them. In a transparent
water-flea Metschnikoff saw these amœba-like, colourless, floating
blood-corpuscles swallowing and digesting the spores of a parasitic
fungus which had attacked the water-fleas and was causing their
death. He came to the conclusion 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 matter is inflicted on a vertebrate
animal the blood-vessels became 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 therefore 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. 37 to
43); and his work for the last twenty 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.
[Illustration:
FIG. 40. FIG. 41. FIG. 42.
Fig. 40.--Phagocyte of a guinea-pig in the course of engulphing
a very mobile undulating spirillum. Fig. 41.--The same, forty
minutes later. Fig. 42.--The same taken half an hour after Fig.
41. (_From_ Metschnikoff’s “Immunity.”)]
[Illustration: FIG. 43.
A large kind of phagocyte of the guinea-pig, killed and stained
for microscopic examination. It shows the large spherical nucleus
and three specimens of the spirillum of relapsing-fever which
have been engulphed, 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_ Metschnikoff’s
“Immunity.”)]
Disease-germs, bacteria, or protozoa produce poisons which sometimes
are too much for the phagocytes, poisoning 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
demonstrations have led to the discovery of the production by the
phagocytes of certain exudations from their substance 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 ‘opsonins’ are actually produced by the phagocytes themselves.
That this should be so is in accordance with some striking zoological
facts, as I pointed out nearly twenty years ago.[20] 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 amœboid character as ‘phagocytes,’ and actually digest
to a large extent by swallowing or taking into their individual
protoplasm raw particles 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 substance of the cells, and thus by the substitution of
this process of outpouring 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 experiments
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 conclusion, 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 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 their resistance towards 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 demonstration
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 opposition
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
scientific 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--who, just about twenty-five years ago, discovered
the minute animal organism in the red blood-corpuscles, which is the
cause of malaria (see fig. 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 Major Ross, formerly of the Indian Army
Medical Staff, to have discovered, by most patient and persevering
experiment, 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.
[Illustration: FIG. 44.
SCHIZOGONY
SPOROGONY
SEXUAL GENERATION
A diagram showing the life-history and migration of the Malaria
parasite, _Laverania Malariæ_, as discovered by Laveran, Ross,
and Grassi. The stages above the dotted line take place in the
blood of man. The oblong-pointed parasite is seen entering the
blood at _n_ just below No. 1. The circles 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. VIIa and VIIb. They are swallowed
by the spot-winged gnat when it sucks the blood of an infected
man. Here in the gut of the gnat they become spherical; the male
spheres produce spermatozoa No. Xa, which fuse with and fertilize
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 Enhæmospores, which are formed in 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 when it stabs a new human victim who thus becomes
infected, No. XIX.
Had the sausage-like phases Nos. VIIa and VIIb been swallowed by
a common gnat or mosquito of the 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.)]
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 _Trypanosoma Brucei_ (see fig.
46 B). The 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 conveying 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 condition of tolerance by natural selection
and the dying out of those susceptible to the poison--form a sort of
‘reservoir’ of deadly Trypanosomes for the Tsetze flies to carry into
the blood of new-comers. The same phenomenon of ‘reservoir-hosts’ (as
I have elsewhere 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 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 which consists in _repulsion_ or _destruction_ of the
parasite.
[Illustration: FIG. 45.
_Lankesterella ranarum_ (Lank.), the parasite of the red
blood-corpuscles of the edible Frog, described originally as
_Drepanidium ranarum_ by Lankester in 1882, and previously
without name in 1871. The large ovals represent the red
corpuscles of the frog; the dark central mass is the nucleus,
N. In A two spindle-shaped parasites are seen; in B one larger
parasite with nucleus _n_ preparing to divide; in C the parasite
is =V=-shaped. In D the parasite has become spherical, and is so
in E also. In F the spherical parasite has divided into a number
of spores _mz_, with a central residual body _np_. The figures G
to N represent supposed stages in conjugation of small and large
forms; O is an encysted phase; and P a spore or sporozoite of
the sexual generation similar to the needle-shaped exotospores
of Laverania. (See Fig. 44.) All the figures magnified 2,250
diameters. (After Hintze from Minchin’s section on Sporozoa in
Lankester’s “Treatise on Zoology.”)]
[Illustration: FIG. 46.
Various species of _Trypanosoma_ from the blood of mammals,
birds, and reptiles. A. _T. Lewisii_, from the blood of rats; B.
_T. Brucei_, the parasite of the Nagana or Tsetze-fly disease,
found in the blood of horses, cattle, and big game; C. _T.
gambiense_, the parasite causing Sleeping Sickness in man; D. _T.
equinum_, which causes the _mal de caderas_ in South American
horse ranches; E. _T. noctuæ_, 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. damoniæ_, from the blood of a tortoise; _c.g._, granules;
_v._, vacuole; _l.s._, fold of the crest or undulating membrane.
These figures are from Dr. Woodcock’s article on the
“Hæmoflagellates” in the _Quarterly Journal of Microscopical
Science_, April and June, 1906. (See also the figures in the next
chapter relating to Sleeping Sickness.)]
The Trypanosomes have acquired a terrible notoriety within the last
four years, since another species, also carried by a Tsetze fly
of another species, has been discovered by Castellani in cases of
Sleeping Sickness in Uganda, and demonstrated by Colonel Bruce to be
the cause of that awful disease.[21] 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 employés 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 association with
other men of science, on the Victoria Nyanza Lake in Central Africa.
Lieutenant Tulloch was sent out to this investigation by the Royal
Society of London, and I will venture to ask my readers to join that
body in sympathy for his friends, and admiration for him and the
other courageous men who risk their lives in the endeavour to arrest
disease.
Trypanosomes are now being recognised in the most diverse regions
of the world as the cause of disease--new horse diseases in South
America, 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. In 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 biological 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 since our last meeting
at York 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 long-sought parasitic germ of Syphilis, the
_Spirochæta pallida_ (see fig. 6). As I write these words the sad
news of Schaudinn’s death at the age of thirty-five 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 thousands 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 century, 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 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
twenty-five 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 Government 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 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 persons 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 scientific men by the
administrative departments of Government might with advantage be
undertaken by a committee 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 university,
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 knowledge 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 literature 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
nobleman, 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
consideration of those who desire the advancement of science. When
such things are done, science cannot be said to have advanced much in
public consideration or Governmental support.
_To the Editor of the ‘Times.’_
SIR,--The death, noted by you to-day, of my dear friend and
colleague Dr. Copeland, His Majesty’s Astronomer for Scotland,
creates a vacancy in the scientific staff of Great Britain.
Will you permit me, Sir, to offer a word of warning to any who
may be asked to succeed him?
Students or masters of astronomy are not, in the selfish sense,
business men, nor are they as a general rule overburdened with
this world’s goods. It behoves them henceforth to take more care
as to their future in case of illness or physical infirmity and
not to trust to the gratitude or generous impulse of the Treasury
Department.
In old days it was the custom when a man distinguished in science
was brought into a high position in the Civil Service that he
was credited with a certain number of years’ service ranking for
pension. This practice has been done away with, and a bargain
system substituted. A short while ago the growing agonies of
heart disease caused Dr. Copeland to feel that he was less able
to carry on the duties of his post, and he determined to resign;
but he learnt that under the scale, and in the absence of any
special bargain, the pension he would receive would not suffice
for the necessities of life. The only increase his friends
could get from the Treasury was an offer to allow him about
half-a-crown a week extra by way of a house.
Indignant and ashamed of my Government, I persuaded Dr. Copeland
to withdraw his resignation and to retain the official position
which he has honoured till his death.
I trust, Sir, that this memorandum of mine may cause eminent men
of science who are asked to enter the service of the State when
already of middle age to take heed for their future welfare.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
CRAWFORD.
2 Cavendish Square, October 28.
It is more agreeable to me not to dwell further on the comparative
failure of science to gain increased influence and support in this
country, but to mention some instances on the other side of the
account. As long ago as 1842 the British Association took over and
developed an observatory in the Deer Park at Kew, which was placed
at the disposal of the Association by Her Majesty the Queen. Until
1871 the Association spent annually a large part of its income--as
much in later years as 600_l._ a year--in carrying on the work of
the Kew Observatory, consisting of magnetic, meteorological and
physical observations. In 1871 the Association handed over the
Observatory to the Royal Society, which had received an endowment
of 10,000_l._ from Mr. Gassiot for its maintenance, and had further
devoted to that purpose considerable sums from its own Donation Fund
and Government Grant. Further aid for it was also received from
private sources. From this Observatory at last has sprung, in the
beginning of the present century, the National Physical Laboratory
in Bushey Park, a fine and efficient scientific institution, built
and supported by grants from the State, and managed by a committee
of really devoted men of science who are largely representatives of
the Royal Society. In addition to the value of the site and buildings
occupied by the National Physical Laboratory, the Government has
contributed altogether 34,000_l._ to the capital expenditure on
new buildings, fittings, and apparatus, and has further assigned a
grant of 6,000_l._ a year to the working of the laboratory. This
institution all men of science are truly glad to have gained from the
State, and they will remember with gratitude the statesmen--the late
Marquis of Salisbury, the 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 institution 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 has ever occupied the position of a Minister of
the Crown), and later by the influence of the Right Hon. Joseph
Chamberlain, a subsidy of 1,000_l._ a year from the Government and
a contribution of 5,000_l._ towards its initial expenses. This is
the Marine Biological Association,[22] which has a laboratory at
Plymouth (see fig. 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 such knowledge
of the North Sea and its inhabitants 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 expenditure 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 exploration 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
Biological Association are of great value and interest, and, if
properly continued 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. 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 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 Directorship of Kew Gardens to a young
man of influence devoid of all knowledge of botany!
[Illustration: 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 has 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, &c. 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 the past five 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.]
One of the most solid tests of the esteem and value attached to
scientific progress by the community is the dedication of large sums
of money to scientific purposes by its wealthier members. We know
that in the United States such gifts are not infrequent; 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 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 Whitehead when Lord
Mayor, some sixteen years ago, for the purpose of making a gift to
the Pasteur 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 surplus 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
thankful for them, and admire the wise munificence of the donors. But
none the less we must refuse to rely entirely on such liberality for
the development 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 interest 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 delightful 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 professional character of
scientific work are to a large extent the cause of this falling-off
in its attraction for amateurs. But perhaps that decadence is also
due in some measure to the increased general demand for a kind of
manufactured gaiety, readily sent out in these days of easy transport
from the great centres of fashionable amusement to the provinces and
rural districts.
Before concluding this retrospect, I would venture to allude to the
relations 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 recognized that there is
no essential antagonism between the scientific spirit and what is
called the religious sentiment. ‘Religion,’ said Bishop Creighton,
‘means the knowledge of our destiny and of the means of fulfilling
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 knowledge of the Eternal.