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When a few clays ago we startled our readers with quoting the results of Dr . Geokge Wilson ' s researches on colour-blindness , that every one person in fifteen was more or less affected by it , we little thought a whole nation was open to the charge . Yet such , according to Mr . Ruskust , seems to be the conclusion we must form about the Greeks in whom " the sense of colour seems to have been so comparatively dim and uncertain , that it is almost impossible to ascertain what the real idea was which they attached to any word alluding to hue . " We admit the difficulty , but we cannot accept all Mr . Ruskin ' s illustrations . He mentions the " wine-faced sea , " so frequently used in Homer , and says one might think that reddish purple was meant ; but vines are of various colours , from the dark purple of Burgundy to the
amber brightness of Hock , and the question is , what wine did Homer refer to ? Probably to some dark green coloured wine , since Sophocles in the CEdipus Coloneus calls the ivy " wine-faced " olvoiira kigvov ( v . 674 ) . Air . Ruskin further objects to Sophocles that in the Ajass he talfcs of the **' green sand ; " but on turning to the passage to which without doubt he refers , we find the phrase afift x ^ 9 4 t ® ( v - 1064 ) , which in mere dictionary meaning eertainly , means green sand ,- but Mr , Ruskin is too good a scholar not to know that % Awpo £ means yellow as often as green , that it is used to designate honey , fox example , which is precise indication enough of the colour meant . Still , while questioning the instances adduced by Mr . Ruskin the fact to which he points is unquestionable , the Greeks did use
XAwpoe to designate both green and yellow ; and this , with many other indications , shows a great waat of nicety in their language , implying a want of nicety in their perceptions of colour . Anacueon in a famous passage talks of the " purple hair ? J of his mistress : what does he mean by it ? does he mean merely " beautiful * hair—or does he mean the blue black hair we sometimes see , like the colour of the raven ' s neck in the sun ? Purple was the favourite colour of the Greeks , but no one has yet precisely told us what they meant by the word . c £ Purple sea , " " purple hair , " and even " purple death , " convey little knowledge . Probably the word was used as a sort of admiring epithet ; just as Horace speaks of the " purple swans of Venus , " no one supposing these " purpureos olores " to have "been purple-feathered .
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The literature of Table-Ttiming and SpiritrRapping lias not been equal to the subject . Believers have written nonsense ; sceptics have been too supercilious , and have not sufficiently considered the mania as one of the forms of mental malady , which , in various ages , has presented itself . In thus reproaching the sceptics , we are reproaching ourselves ; fdr whatever notice we have felt called upon to take of the Rappers or Tableturners , we have treated them as impostors or as dupes , without connecting these particular cases with any general forerunners . This omission is , at length , supplied in-a masterly article by M . Littke , in the Revue des Deux Mondes for 15 th February . He therein sketches the various delusions of
sorman can solve a single problem of science , or predict a single political per currence ; the great mysteries remain mysteries , even for these agents of another world . ; and not only the great mysteries , but the simplest difficulties which can perplex a man , are without a solution from these spirits . ? o great an expenditure of power for so minimised a result surpasses even the parturient mountain , which did , at any rate , produce a mouse ; and that one amiable rodent is far more valuable than all the revelations of spirit-rappers .
eery , possession , eestacy , convulsion , &c ., which , at various epochs , have constituted the epidemics of the mind 5 and he shows how spirit-rapping is allied to these delusions ; and how it must be treated as a case of mental pathology . It is noticeable that certain general phenomena present themselves in all these hallucinations ; and by grouping together these constant facts , and eliminating the accidental and variable facts , M . Littre gives the rationale of the whole . Thus one certain and constant fact is the derangement of the nervous system of the " possessed ; " and these derangements are familiar to the physician , who , instead of regarding them as the operations of a demon , a spirit , or some miraculous power ,
classes them among the well-known phenomena of mental disturbance . Another fact is the collectiv e nature of the hallucination : that thousands believe in spirit-rapping is not more wonderful than that thousands should be attacked by Cholera , or by the Black Death , or the Sweating Sickness , at particular epochs : n disease of the nervous system may as easily become opidemic as a disease of the nutritive system . Nevertheless the circle of these maladies is narrow . In every case it is some disturbance of the senses which makes the patient see , hear , or touch in a confused or heightened
manner ; or the nervous system is thrown into strange conditions of sensibility , and terrible convulsions give an unusual muscular power , followed by great prostration . To tliesc general circumstances add the particular ideas or fancies of the time , and in one age you have a Pythoness labouring with the inspiration of Apollo ; in another a witch calling upon Hecate , and embracing Satan ; in anothw the angels of Heaven have descended upon earth , and inspired the persecuted faithful ; in another the spirits of the Duke of Kent and Bunjamin Franklin quit their supernal abode to assure Robert Owbn that his doctrine is "the truth "
One final characteristic of all these delusions is worthy of notice . The powers of Heaven and Hell , of angels , departed spirits , and the imps of Satan are in nctive communication with man , and , nevertheless , the favoured naortaja cannot prove a single advantage derived from this supernatural aid : no man is a penny wiser ( though thousands are a pound fooltaher ) , no
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RYMER JONES ON THE ANIMAL KINGDOM . General Outline of the Organisation of the Animal Kingdom , artd Manual of Comparative Anatomy . By Thomas Rymer Jones , F . R . S ., Professor of Comparative Anatomy in King ' s College . Second Edition . Van Yoorst . We have many medical readers , and many more readers to ^ hom a work like the present will be a valuable and almost , indispensable companion . There exists no work in our language , except Dr . Carpenter ' s , which can pretend to rival it , and its superiority over Dr . Carpenter ' in all essential respects is very decided : it is more agreeably and less confusedly written j difficult
it is fuller in details , and incomparably better in the exposition of questions—such , for instance , as the vertebral theory , which in Carpenter is an arid abridgement of Owen , and in the present volume-is a- new asid popular presentation of Owen ' s views—and it is illustrated with far more numerous and more beautifully-executed diagrams- The wood-cuts of this work , four hundred . iii number ( which gives one to every other page ) , have long been celebrated ; and if they were only accompanied by minute descriptions , instead of the descriptions being scattered through the text ( a hint for future editions ) , would alone suffice to render the bpok indespensable to all students .
Professor Rymer Jones is a very popular writer , but he is not a philosophic zoologist . The tendencies of his intellect are all in a different direction , and even when the necessities of the case force Mm to grapple with a great philosophic question , we see him do so reluctantly , and as if anxious to quit it . On the other hand , he spares us bad philosophy , in which Dr . Carpenter so profusely indulges : the absence is a charm . Professor Rymer Jones furnishes inateriais , and leaves the student to make what use of them he can . ijTe ' nce we are indisposed , to ' quarrel with him on his system , or want of system , in ^ classification ; although this is a cardinal point in philosophic zoology , arid one winch materially affects the interest and convenience of an
exposition of the Rfyne Animal . It has been well said , "Le groupement seul est une clarfce ; il elitnine ee qui est accidental . " He has , however , the merit of pursuing a different course from that pursued by most zoologists , especially the French ; lie does not , like them , commence with the most complex organisms to descend to the less complex , but begins with the simple and rises gradually to the complex . The Cuyieriannotion . . . of " degradation' * is thus insensibly replaced by the more philosophic notion of " gradation . " In each case we have the wholae animal kingdom presented t ; o our view : but in the latter we seize the true meaning of each degree of complication . A glance will detect this .
Nutrition belongs to all animals ; but although the final and fundamental act—Assimilation—is the same in all , the preparatory and intermediate processes are singularly varied . Thus the Infusoria , or unicellular organisms , have no special organ whatever , the only distinction between tne parts is that of " envelope and " contents ; " by its envelope the animal absorbs , feels , and moves ; by its contents it assimilates . An . Anaseba , for example , maybe looked upon as an assimilating surface haying the property of contractility : nothing more . Gradually we observe fresh distinctions of parts .: a hole is formed , by way of mouth ; then we have two holes , one for reception , the other for rejection of food . Then the mouth becomes furnished with jaws ; then with rudimentary teeth ; afterwards with actual teeth , but
all of one type ; finally the teeth themselves become distinguished into incisors and molars j a tongue is added to the mouth ; so that from a simple opening to a complicated tnouth we trace a series of differentiations . The alimentary canal is at first a * mass of cells , then a variety of assimilative sacks or spaces , then a simple canal , then a complicated canal , then a canal formed of oesophagus , stornach , small intestines and large" intestines . With this increasing complication there is an accompaniment of accessory organs , liver , parotis , pancreas , spleen , &c , secreting matters indispensable to the proper preparation of the food before it can be assimilated . The same is true of all the functions ; and a well-arranged disposition of the Animal Kingdom would make it evident . The arrangement adopted by Professor Rymer Jones , though f ar from satisfactory , will roughly indicate this progression .
In a work embracing so vast a range of details as this " Animal Kingdom , " there will necessarily be errors : aliter nonfit , Avite 3 liber . But our estimate must bo formed on what is positive in it , not on what is negative ; on solid , general excellences , not on particular deficiencies . We have already said that the general merits of the book are great ; the particular errors may be left to the merciless criticism of professional jealousy . We should , however , be ill-fullilling our office if we passed over in silence two or three points , which may mislead the student . Page 13 we read , " The whole doctrine of cell-development , indeed , is a simple revival of the Buffoniau dogma , now for the first time ^ rendered' intelligible . " If Professor Rymer Jones will turn to Buffon ' s own exposition of Ins" theory of organic molecules in the second volume of the Historic Robin and Venleil
Nattfirelle , or to any of the modern defenders of it—Chimic Anatomujne—ho will expunge that sentence as altogether inaccurate . Pages 42 and 6 . 9 , be contends—in eomrnon , it is true , with almost all phyr sialogists—that in those animals which arc destitute of nerves , the nervous matter is mixed up in a molecular state with the rest of the body ; and that the presence of muscular fibre in the actinia presupposes the existence oi nervous filaments , This is one of the extraordinary fallacies which phy > siologists seem unable to shako oiT . Their microscopes tell them the plah fact that no nervous matter can be detected , and no reagent indirectly provei its presence : yet they persist in saying it must be there . Suppose we wer to insist , on the same method of deduction , that the mpllusca had asscou ^ s keletons ? No hone can be detected in thp mplluso , jj ; jp true ; but bone ) detected in all vevtcbrata , nnd must therefore be diffused in the molluset
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March 1 , 1856 . 1 ' T H E LliBjR . . 207
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Critics are not the legislators , t > u . t the judges and police of literature . They do not make Ia-w 3 — they interpret and try to enforce them . — Edinburgh Review .
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Leader (1850-1860), March 1, 1856, page 207, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2130/page/15/
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