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1240 THE LEADER. [Saturday,
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Critics " are not the legislators, but t...
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Isr a recent visit to Oxford, we were gr...
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NOBLE ON INSANITY. Elements of Psycholog...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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1240 The Leader. [Saturday,
1240 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,
Immtm
IMmtm
Critics " Are Not The Legislators, But T...
Critics " are not the legislators , but the judges and police Of literature . They do . . not make laws— they interpret and try to enforce them .-rrJ ? di » 6 itr ^ A JBewiew .
Isr A Recent Visit To Oxford, We Were Gr...
Isr a recent visit to Oxford , we were greatly struck by the enormous capabilities and their enormous waste which that " centre of learning" presents If anything in this country imperatively demands organic reform it is this University . Wandering through its beautiful colleges , reflecting on its wealth , its prestige , its libraries , and its opportunities , Oxford appeared to us wholly to have lost its raison d ' etre—its function in the social organism . It is no more the centre of learning than a fossil is the representative of a living animal . It produces gentlemen , excellent fellows , a few scholars , and some distinguished men ; but it produces the last named in spite of , not in virtue of , its system . Its system is one which , admirably adapted to the age which originated it , is in complete discordance with this age . When
Greek and Latin , the Organon and Euclid , formed the culture of Europe , when the educated class was almost exclusively an , ecclesiastical class , then , indeed , Oxford had its raison d'etre ; and if only ecclesiastical students were received there now , some reasons might be urged for the continuance of its system . But to suppose that such a training is the one best fitted for youth in the nineteenth century is profoundly to misunderstand the needs of pur age . Incessant prayers , grinding of Thtjcydeoes alternating with grinding of the Gospels , " getting up" a Greek play , or construing Tacitus—what has all this to do with our Life ? The boasted benefits of " intellectual training" which are claimed for the classic languages would be far more efficiently secured by Science . But Science is not dead ; if it were Oxford would teach it .
We are told , indeed , that from Thucyiudes and Lrvr , from Pjlato and Tacitds , we gain our best moral and political instruction ; a proposition which must be received with considerable qualification , but which , even if admitted to the fullest , in no way legitimates the enormous devotion of time to the acquirement of such instruction . Our readers know the position we assume in this question of the study of ancient languages ; how indispensable we hold that study as a special study for a certain class of men ; and how impossible we hold it to be for translations ever to adequately reproduce the aesthetic qualities of ancient works . But with regard to the practical instruction supposed to be derived from ancient writers , who will deny that translations are even more available than originals which have to be " construed ? " Observe this curious contradiction : those who deem classical
literature of such immense importance because of its bearings on life , and will not hear of its being studied in translations , do , nevertheless , content themselves with a translation of the Bible , and never insist on the necessity for its being studied in Hebrew ! What Latin and Greek were for the Middle Ages , Sci ^ ce is for our Mother Age . In days when such as Lady Jane Grey turned over the pages of Boethius or Pxato , as our educated women turn over those of
j Tenelon or Goethe—when Latin and Greek were accomplishments such as French and German are now , Oxford was a centre of learning . It is now a centre of superstition . It travels in the lumbering old coach , while the railway car is flashing past . [ Aud as a piquant illustration , let us add that even now it refuses to have its libraries lighted with gas !] Clinging to the dead past , less from reverence than from fear of the present , it pretends to mould the young generations by training them as they would have been trained centur ies acrone !
Beside these evils , which we indicate in passing , there are , however , hopeful signs . Men there are in Oxford who deeply feel how much is to be done , and how little the present system is competent to do it ; men who love Oxford , and would retain what is powerful for good , while eliminating the obstacles . Science also ha 3 no Temple , indeed , yet some small Chapels . Oxford is proud of her Buckxand , her Daubknky , her Maskelkynk , her Phillips , her Acxand , few as are the students who listen to them : the fow will become the many if Oxford continues .
It is something to say that in eight years Dr . Aci . anh has been able to form that small , yet , for its size , ricli and admirably arranged Museum of Christ Church , wherein the student may learn comparative anatomy ; and although very few students as yet have availed themselves of these riches , nevertheless a beginning has been made , and those who have listened to Dr . Ad . ANi > have learned the grandeur and importance of Anatomy as a science to be studied apart from professional necessities , an Astronomy and Chemistry are studied apart from Navigation and Manufactures .
The reader may smile , and whisper " Nothing like leather ; " but wo are quite serious in saying that our visit to this Museum , and the conversation with its accomplished curator , suggested more hope for Oxford than anything else we saw there ; not because Biology , being tho science of our predilection , appears to us all-important , but because it is a great science and is taught hero on scientific principles , as an instrument of Education . not merely as a professional requirement . By an easy transition we pass from this Museum of Comparative Anatomy to an illustration rocently afforded of the direct application of Comparison as , a means of elucidating problems in human physiology . We arc going
to boirow from the last number of the Annales des Sciences Naturelles a ver curious verification of an hypothesis respecting the formation of fat but before doing so , it may be well to state what was the state of opinion on thi ' subject . It was maintained by one school that all the fats found in animals are derived from vegetables ; the vegetables form them-from inorganic ' •• matter the animals assimilate them when thus formed , but are quite unable to do what the vegetables do , form them in their own bodies . Another school maintained that animals did both : they assimilated the fats found in vegetables , and formed them also directly in their bodies by new
combinations of the materials furnished in their food . According to the one school , you must feed an animal on fatty matters ; according to the other he will make the fat for ' himself if you give him food , even though the food contain no fat . In Lehmann ' s " Physiological Chemistry" ( vol . i ., p . 239 , of the last German edition ) , the curious reader will find ample details , which prove the second hypothesis to be the more probable . Lehmann adds , however , that the experiments have only been statistical . They turn upon comparisons of the quantity in the food and in the animal . In the investigations announced by the Annales des Sciences we see the problem simplified , and the demonstration placed beyond a doubt .
MM . Lacaze and Riche examined the little Hymenopterous insects named Cynipidce . These insects pierce the skin of certain vegetables and deposit their eggs in the cavity ; this produces an excrescence called the gall . This gall is found to be a series of concentric layers enveloping the alimentary mass , in the centre of which the insect grows , feeding on this mass of cells containing fecula ( starch ) . It occurred to the gentlemen , just named , that here was an experiment , so to speak , of Nature ' s own instituting . They analysed the alimentary mass on which the insect fed , and compared it with the analysis of the insect . We cannot here give the details : one will suffice . They found in the gall of one plant that the
alimentary mass contained 0-236 milligrammes of fatty matter ; whereas the insect contained 5 * 010 milligrammes , an excess of more than 4 milligrammes , which it must have formed from the fecula . "
Noble On Insanity. Elements Of Psycholog...
NOBLE ON INSANITY . Elements of Psychological Medicine . An Introduction to the practical study of Insanity By Daniel Noble . Price 7 * . 6 d . Churchill . ( Second Auticxe . ) Insanity is one of the most interesting subjects , as wellas one of the most urgent importance , which can engage the philosophic mind ; it is , however , also one of the most delicate and difficult . Before we can hope to arrive at any satisfactory knowledge of itwe must first settle our Psychology and
, Physiology , neither of which are at present in a condition to furnish us with absolute data . While therefore we wish to recommend Dr . Noble ' work as a suggestive and serviceable contribution to the science , we must at the same time warn the student that it is only a tentative essay ^ and that its teachings must be received with caution , and in some cases with direct negation ; this less from any fault in the author than from the condition of our knowledge . But the author is in fault too , as we conceive ; and we must lay before him and our readers the reasons which make us question
certain passages of these " elements . , First of Psychology . Dr . ^ oble belongs to a school so entirely opposed to the one we follow , that a mere indication of two fundamental positions must suffice . While maintaining with all Physiologists that the Brain is the organ of the Mind , he ranges with those Psychologists who maintain that the Mind is an immaterial Entity—a spirit euperadded to the Brain . And , like them , talking as if Spirit were a thing with which we are perfectly acquainted , lays down this proposition : — "If there be one characteristic which , more than another , may be said to . distinguish spirit from matter , it is its absolute unity . " . We do rfot profess to characterise " spirit , " nor do we understand the process by which its nature is rendered intelligible . Dr . Noble , how ever , hints that those who do not recognise his distinction want fresh air a exercise to restore them to mental health . On the next page we are toi , " In one word , it is the immaterial spirit which wiixs . " As this is not tnj time for a discussion of immaterialism , we indicate these two positions a
pass on . , " Non ragioniam di lor Ma guarda o passa . " Next of Physiology . On the whole the student will find a very ^ ear account of what is known of the nervous system in its bearings on J . na » £ but we deem it right to caution him against one or two passages . - ^ , able the reader to follow the argument we commence by a quotation : " You aro aware that , whilst the structural appearances and constitution !? " A [* j ] ity of nnd nervous system have a certain general similarity , there is yet . an obvious a * / ^ matter lv
the tissues into two distinct kinds—the grey and tho whito ; a "* "" in these applies alike to tho encephalon , the spinal cord , and the nerves . The dillerenc ^ raoWO nervous flubstanccs is not an affair or colour only : it refers aloo to thoir intjm . and organisation ; tho white matter is made up of bundles of tubular fibres , wnua ^ ^^ is composed of aggregated coifs , and is often denominated the vosioular neurin . auB 0 t | , 0 t ions of this vesicular substance , tho term ganglion is very generally appl < eu > nonrea and knots of nervous matter which were formerly supposed to givo origin * ° . } t rMn po 8 ition . which are distributed so largely throughout tho body , are vesicular in tl'on . *[ grtn-And thus tho identity in structural constitution has led to emp loyment or ij oS ( jcnt jal , glion as a common term , although the ganglionic or spheroidal form is non .. ** . tfUl ) StanCO . as wa 3 at one timo supposed , to the constitution of what is now called gangiioi ^ ^ . | l 0 l'hysiological and pathological researches have rendered it more Y ?!^ P \ i ofljCC 8 in t ' vesicular and the fibrous substances have , universally , separate and distinct ^ aiiunai uio sirucinro hvuicu ¦•
economy : Kuiiguoiuc H Deing me «« •/ ;• - — :. : the i <» v " fibrous matter being simply for tho conduction of impressions onginutine » . omincnt This theory , in the promulgation of which Mr . Solly shares probably in tno »» degree , is now received very generally as scientific truth . . f or ve 8 icul « " Iu the anatomical structures within tho head , various collections ot gr «/»
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 24, 1853, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_24121853/page/16/
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