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S$2 THE LEADER ^ [Sattjrba Y >
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;; mUvntuit i ¦ ¦ . ¦ ¦¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ • -¦ ' - ¦ ¦ ¦
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Critics are "not the legislators, but th...
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While the season is drawing to a languid...
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There is a story told of some omnivorous...
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BOOKS ON OUR TABLE. / Sketches of'Russia...
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, ^ LAMARCK AND T.IMC V.NSTKXEK. Vestige...
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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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
S$2 The Leader ^ [Sattjrba Y >
S $ 2 THE LEADER [ Sattjrba Y >
;; Muvntuit I ¦ ¦ . ¦ ¦¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ • -¦ ' - ¦ ¦ ¦
;; mUvntuit i ¦ ¦ . ¦ ¦¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ - ¦ ' - ¦ ¦ ¦
Critics Are "Not The Legislators, But Th...
Critics are " not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . . They do not V . jnafce laws—they r interpret and try to enforcei . hem .. —X ! dinburghMeview . . .
While The Season Is Drawing To A Languid...
While the season is drawing to a languid close , and all Literature partakes of a " recess , " it may not be without interest to many if we sharpen anticipation , by reminding them that Thackeray ' s new serial will open the Autumn season . It is announced to commence in October . Its title is to be The Newcomes—not a very promising title ; but the signature of the writer is attractive enough , to dispense with eye-catching labels !
There Is A Story Told Of Some Omnivorous...
There is a story told of some omnivorous and omniscient philosopher , vrtib read everything , knew everything , and foresaw everything , being suddenly , yet gravely , asked if he had seen Biot ' s paper on the " malleability of light f" and replying " Yes : he sent it me last week . " The malleability of light is a good joke ; and'yet such are the marvels of scientific discovery , and such the outrages committed on the propriety of language , that one -might hesitate before suspecting even light not to be malleable . The " polarization of light" is not much less absurd ; and yet it is the indication of a most important phenomenon .
And what a lesson it teaches of the frivolity and foolishness which would attempt to coerce Science within the limits of the obviously useful , —which would say to any proposed investigation , What is the use of it ? Nothing can , at first sight , seem more remote from any practical advantage , than that we should be able , by a bit of Iceland spar , to twist a ray of light ; but enlarged experience teaches , that , in the first place , all knowledge is necessarily of practical advantage , and , in the second , by means of this
twisted ray , we can lead investigation into recesses inaccessible to others By the polarizing prism the Manufacturer , the Chemist , the Anatomist , the Astronomer , are severally guided . The farmer can ascertain , by it , the amount of sugar in the wort ; the manufacturer can detect annealed from unannealed' j lass , while , for the man of science , there were chemical reagents , and the most powerful microscopes are useless—this twisted ray of light gives ^ indisputable evidence .
Among the great-results of this application of polarized light is certainly the insight it has given into the structure of certain organic substances . If a ray of polarized light be transmitted through _ solutions of albumen , of sugar , of various vegetable acids and alkalis , and some essential oils , the ray will be found to turn upon itself , so to speak ; if the solutions are then crystallized they will be incomplete crystals , i . e ., dissymmetrical . These two properties are always found together , and are probably related causally . They betray a difference in the molecular arrangement of organic substances , an arrangement which , be it observed , persists even during solution , therefore belonging to the organic molecule . Could we but see a molecule of tar ^ aric acid , we should doubtless find that its atoms were not arranged with , the symmetry of an inorganic molecule .
. : The Trench chemists are actively engaged in investigating this subject , and M . Pasteur , to whom Ave owe the decomposition of raccmic acid into an acid of right-handed , ami an acid of left-handed , polarization , has aniittuncccl the artificial transformation of the two with the formation of an acid symmetrical and inoperative on tho ray of polarized light . It seems nothing—who shall calculate its consequences ?
Books On Our Table. / Sketches Of'russia...
BOOKS ON OUR TABLE . / Sketches of'Russian L \ f
, ^ Lamarck And T.Imc V.Nstkxek. Vestige...
, ^ LAMARCK AND T . IMC V . NSTKXEK . Vestiges of tho Natural , History of Croatian . Tenth lOdilioh . With extensive Additions nnd Kmcndationn , inul liluHtmfced by numerous Engm-vin ^ H on Wood . ' " 'I . Chureliill . . [ X ) 1 , 1 UD AltTICMC . J "We now como to an appreciation of the validity , and imperfection of the Dpvolopnient JTypotheaiB , uh pv . h , forth in tho Vestiges . 'Lhere is a , current potion , industriously circulated by adversaries , that tho Vestiges is only a reproduction-of rLamardc .. People aro ho very fond of talking about what thoy 4 o . not understand , and of uning colobrntod names with " v . my familiarity , that w < i infjuy al / Lribyto thin acou . sation ¦ rnoro to mu ; h vanity than to deliberates dowro of iUlNi . jh ' uation ; but it in incumbent onna hm-o \ , q atato
that , tie $ ycry ; one wlio Ikih read , \ jiwmrck known , tho Vestiges , ho fur from l'cprodueing Lamarck ' s llypothesiH , takes na dirtjetly opposite a view of it as tho naiuvi ) of . tUo Vff . apra < Imil , H . Wo nuiy rondei' their dilFovonco apprcoia ^ Jo if wp pay ; thfti , whilg Lun , ia , r (! k , m too much of a " matorialist , " tho iixithov ottlui fcstiges is too much , of a VrnotapIiyHician ; " one lays the wholo Btrosfl -of l » ia > argument , on " external tvircuinstiftnCoB , " the other <) n ? v " pirO- ^ dain ' tid | i ] A ) ri . *' ' ., ' ^ a . niarck wiiB ' o ^ o-euhxl , tho ¦ Vestiges is nuitapliyHioal aud false . M ! oro of this iiuoik MoauwluloJofc uhcim ! uliljenliori tt > th ( i fa «| j ' , that tho VtstiybSj ' ojv . on in \ ti \ o first edition , iso for from j-oproduoin ^ ifjamftr clt'd' Hypbthoais , pointed out wliat soomoc ); its error , and
spoke of it with a superciliousness which , we are glad to see replaced , in subsequent editions , by a more respectful tone , one more worthy of that great thinker , selected by De Blamville as the representative of the French school , compared with whom De Blamville considers Cuvier to have been a mere litterateur . Here are the passages to be compared : —
OFJRST EDITION . . ' ¦ .. " Early in this century , M . Lamarck , a naturalist of the highest character , suggested an hypothesis of organic progress which deservedly incurred much ridicule , although it contained a glimmer of the truth . He stiruiised , and endeavoured , with a great deal of ingenuity , to prove , that one . "being-advanced in the course of generations to another , in con ^ sequence merely of its experience of its
wants calling for the exercise of faculties in a particular direction , by which exercise new developments of organs took place , ending in variations sufficient to constitute a new species . Tims he thought that a bird would be driven by necessity to seek its food in the water , and that , in its efforts to swim , the outstretching of its claws would lead to- the expansion of the intermediate membranes , and it would thus become web-footed . Now it is possible that wants and the exercise of faculties
have entered in some manner into the production of the phenomena which , we have been considering ; but certainly not in the way suggested by Lamarck , whose whole notion is obviously so inadequate to account for the rise of the organic kingdoms , that we only can place it with pity among the follies of the ihise . Had the laws of organic development been known in his time , his theory might have been of a more imposing kind . It is upon these that the present
hypothesis is mainly founded . I take existing natural means , and shew them to have been capable of producing all the existing organisms , with the simple and easily conceivable aid of a higher generative law , which we perhaps still see operating upon a limited scale . I also go beyond the French philosopher to a very important point , the original Divine conception of all the forms of being which these natural laws were only instruments in working out and realizing .
The actuality of such a conception I hold to be strikingly demonstrated by the discoveries of Macleay , Vigors , and Swainson , with respect to the affinities and analogies of animal ( and by implication vegetable ) organisms . Such a regularity in tho structure , as we may call it , of the classification of animals , as is shewn in their systems , is totally irreconcilable with the idea of form going on to form merely as needs and wishes in tho animals themselves dictated . Had such
been the case , all would have been irregular , as things arbitrary necessarily are . But , lo , the whole plan of being is an symmetrical ns the plan of a house , or the laying out of an old-fashioned garden ! This must needs have been dovised and arranged for beforehand . And what , a preconception or forothonght have wo hero ! Let us only for a moment consider bow various arc tho external physical conditions in which animals live— -climate , soil , temperature ,
lnnd , water , air — tlio peculiarities of food , and tho various wuys in which it is to bo sought ; tho peculiar circumstances in which tho business of reproduction and tho care-talcing of tho young aro to bo attended to—nil those required to bo takon into account , and thousands of animals woro to bo formed suitable in organization and mental diameter for the concerns they were to lmvo with
tljoHO rni'ionH conditions mul circum - stances— -hero a tooth fitted for cribbing nuts ; thoro a claw fitted to servo as a hook fbr Buaponwioh ; horo to ropremi tcoth tind develop a bony net-work in-Htead ; there to arrange for a bronchial apparatus to last only for n certain brief thno ; and nil those imhnnlij woro to bo Hcbomed out , each ns n part of u groat range , which was on tho whole to be
• . TENTEC EDITION " . " -Early in this century ; ] VT . Lamarck one of the most distinguished of modern naturalists , suggested that the gradation of animals depended upon some general law which ' --it was important for us to discover . So far he was right ; but tie theory which he consequentl y formed with regard to the causes of the varieties of animated being , was so far from being adequate to account for the facts that it has had scarcely a single ad !
herent . What M . Lamarck chiefly grounded upon was the Well-known physiological fact , that use or exercise strengthens and enlarges an organ while disuse equally atrophies it . H ^ conceived that , an animal being brought into new circumstances , and called upon to accommodate , itself to these , the exertions which it consequently made to that effect caused the rise of new parts ; on the contrary , when new circum
stances left certain existing parts unused , these parts gradually ceased to exist . Something analogous was , lie thought , produced in vegetables by changes in their nutrition , in their absorption and transpiration , and in the quantity of caloric , light , air , and moisture which they received . This principle , with time , he deemed . sufficient' to- •• have ; . produced' the advance from the monad to the- mammal . His
illustrations were chiefly of the following nature . The bird , which is attracted to the water by the necessity of seeking there its food , wishes to move about on the surface of the flood , and for this purpose strikes out its toes . Through the consequent repeated separations of the toes , the skin uniting them at the roots is extended , and at length becomes webbed . In like manner the
shorebird which has no desire to swim , bus has to approach the water for food , is constantly subject to sink in the mud . The bird , disliking this , exerts all its efforts to lengthen its legs ; the result is , that by continual habifc for many generations , the legs of this order do at length become long and bare , as wo see them . The error of the theory is in giving this adaptive principle too much to do . What undoubtedly is effectual in modifying the exterior peculiarities of animals , was obviously insufficient to account for the great grades of
organization . In the present day , wo have superior light from geology and physiology , and henco cornea the suggestion of a process analogous to ordiiWK' / gestation for advancing organic l » o through its grades , in the course of a long but delinito space of time , with only a recourse to external conditions ^* a means of producing the exterior characters . ' It must nevertheless lie acknowledged that ; the jrerm of this natural view of tho history of the nnimated world is presented in the wOlIv of Lamarck . " ?
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 27, 1853, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_27081853/page/16/
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