The politician and the judge are forgotten now, and only the commentator remains. But his life was consistent throughout. He had a reverence for authority and a respect for formalities; his mind turned more readily to apology than to criticism; and destitute of ideals he lived in a narrow groove, contented with himself and the world. When he and Serjeant Nares were calling for the expulsion of Wilkes because he was a blasphemer, Burke described their arguments as “solid, substantial, roast-beef reasoning.” The phrase paints to the life the worshipper of the constitution, who staked the fate of England upon trial by jury.—Macmillan’s Magazine.
LITERARY NOTICES.
Jelly-Fish, Star-Fish and Sea-Urchins (International Scientific Series). Being a Research into Primitive Nervous Systems. By G. J. Romanes, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S., etc. New York: D. Appleton & Co.
Mr. G. J. Romanes, one of the most distinguished of living English scientists, and a worthy follower in the track of Darwin, has given the world in his study of the lowest forms of animal life a book of great interest to the general reader who is interested in scientific matter. At first glance the line of research followed might not seem particularly engaging except to the professional student, but one hardly dips into the book without finding his attention aroused and stimulated. The poetic enthusiasm with which Mr. Romanes introduces the subject quickly finds a response in the mind of the reader. He writes:
“Among the most beautiful, as well as the most common, of the marine animals which are to be met with upon our coasts, are the jelly-fish and the star-fish. Scarcely anyone is so devoid of the instincts either of the artist or of the naturalist as not to have watched these animals with blended emotions of the æsthetic and the scientific—feeling the beauty while wondering at the organization. How many of us who live for most of the year in the fog and dust of large towns enjoy with the greater zest our summer’s holiday at the seaside? And in the memories of most of us is there not associated with the picture of breaking waves and sea-birds floating indifferently in the blue sky, or on the water still more blue, the thoughts of many a ramble among the weedy rocks and living pools, where, for the time being, we all become naturalists, and where those who least know what they are likely to find in their search are most likely to approach the keen happiness of childhood? If so, the image of the red sea-stars bespangling a mile of shining sand, or decorating the darkness of a thousand grottoes, must be joined with the image, no less vivid, of those crystal globes, pulsating with life and gleaming with all the colors of the rainbow, which are perhaps the most strange, and certainly in my estimation the most delicately lovely creatures in the world.
“It is with these two kinds of creatures that the present work is concerned, and, if it seems almost impious to lay the ‘forced fingers rude’ of science upon living things of such exquisite beauty, let it be remembered that our human nature is not so much out of joint that the rational desire to know is incompatible with the emotional impulse to admire. Speaking for myself, I can testify that my admiration of the extreme beauty of these animals has been greatly enhanced—or rather I should say that this extreme beauty has been, so to speak, revealed—by the continuous and close observation which many of my experiments required: both with the unassisted eye and with the microscope numberless points of detail, unnoticed before, became familiar to the mind; the forms as a whole were impressed upon the memory; and, by constantly watching their movements and changes of appearance, I have grown, like an artist studying a face or a landscape, to appreciate a fulness of beauty, the esse of which is only rendered possible by the percipi of such attention as is demanded by scientific research. Moreover, association, if not the sole creator, is at least a most important factor of the beautiful; and therefore the sight of one of these animals is now much more to me, in the respects which we are considering, than it can be to anyone in whose memory it is not connected with many days of that purest form of enjoyment which can only be experienced in the pursuit of science.”
No matter how interesting investigation into any set of natural phenomena may be, probably none is more attractive than a study of primitive nervous systems. Alike in the survey of the whole of the animal kingdom and in the study of the development of any individual form there are certain broad truths evident. First among these may be mentioned the significant fact that the nervous system of all animals originates from some of the cells of that layer of the body which was originally the outermost. This is the lesson taught by nature that the prime necessity of living organisms is a knowledge of the outer world, and that the most sensitive and important system of organs primarily stands in a direct relation to the outer world. The investigations of Leuckart, Haeckel, Oscar and Richard Hertwig, and Prof. Schafer fully established the fact as to the origin of nerve fibres and sense-cells from the outer layer of the body, and as to the primitively diffused disposition of the central nervous system. This was first observed of the jelly-fish, but subsequent investigation proved it also to be the case with star-fish, sea-urchins and all the forms of echinoderms. Haeckel, in 1860, showed that the eyes of the star-fishes are nothing more than elongated epithelial cells provided with pigments, and throughout life quite superficial in position.
Though Mr. Romanes gives a succinct account of the authentic conclusions reached by other students in this line of scientific research, his book is mostly devoted to his own investigations. He makes a great many curious observations as to the habits and characteristics of the classes of animals of which he treats, beside giving a very complete account of their physiology and morphology. The work is fully illustrated with cuts, and though it may seem at first to bristle with technical matter, the reader will speedily find himself interested in the studies and conclusions of the author.