Darwin's Galton. [1846 forms of organic life and the successful types of civilisation are the best. The theory of natural selection, as more than one eminent biologist has pointed out, restores teleology in a scientific form. The greatest problem that Darwin put before himself from the first was to explain the wonderful adaptations of organisms to their conditions. These were in the most striking cases quite inexplicable by the Lamarckian doctrine; and if they were not explained, it seemed to him that nothing was done. It was natural selection that succeeded in explaining them. There are, indeed, whole groups of facts, apart from those of adaptation, that fit in perfectly with the theory of descent, and are quite unintelligible without it. But the facts of adaptation, before Darwin's hypothesis, resisted all attempts to trace them to natural causes, and their explanation remains still the most conspicuous triumph of the general theory. After the "Origin of Species" Darwin's direct contributions to the theory were: "The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication" (1868); "The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex" (1871); "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals" (1872). The first of these is principally a collection of facts bearing on variability; but it also contains the hypothesis of "Pangenesis," by which Darwin sought to bring together and explain the facts of heredity. This, in the form he gave it, has not met with general acceptance among biologists. The peculiar favour with which he himself always regarded this "despised child" may perhaps find justification in the use Sir Francis Galton has made of it. By modifying Darwin's assumptions, retaining some and rejecting others, Galton arrived at his conception of the "stirp" (put forward in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 1875), which in essential points anticipates the celebrated theory elaborated by Weismann at a later date. The difference is that Galton does not absolutely reject the possibility of what are now called the "Lamarckian" factors in heredity, though he regards them as certainly of minor importance. In the Descent of Man" Darwin applies the 1 According to the theory of Pangenesis, all the cells of the body, during the process of self-division by which they multiply, thow off "gemmules." By aggregations of these the sexual elements are formed. The gemmules themselves multiply by self-division, and every gemmule admits of being 1865] "Descent general theory of biological evolution to the particular case of The the human species. His own opinion was known from an of Man." allusion in the "Origin," though he had not gone into the special question. It was, however, clear that if all other living beings. were descended from one or a few very simple forms of life, the presumption would be that man himself has his place somewhere in one of the diverging lines of descent. This was now argued out; and in the same volume the theory of sexual Sexual selection was put forth. According to this theory, an important influence modifying species is exercised by preferences on the part of the female-e.g. in birds, for plumage of particular colours or patterns. The volume on "Expression of the Emotions" takes for its basis the work of Sir C. Bell on "Expression," but rejects his view that certain muscles were formed at first in order to express certain emotions, and seeks instead an explanation in accordance with the principle. of natural selection. The Darwinian theory has all along found confirmation in its power of explaining details hitherto unexplained and of drawing attention to new facts. The work of the embryologists-among whom may be mentioned F. M. Balfour-has been confirmatory of the doctrine of evolution in general. A confirmation of the doctrine of natural selection is found in the fact of "mimicry" developed into a cell. Galton accepts the distinction between body-cells and gemmules, and attributes to the latter the same power of multiplying and of developing into cells; but instead of taking the developed organism he takes the ovum as the starting-point of the theory, and in this way is able completely to transform it. The sum total of germs or gemmules in the newlyfertilised ovum he calls the "stirp." Only the smaller part of this, he supposes, becomes developed into the "personal structure" of the organism. Out of the residue of undeveloped germs or gemmules are formed the sexual elements of the next generation. Thus the notion of a germinal residue "continuous," as Weismann puts it, from one generation to another, is substituted for Darwin's notion of an aggregate newly forming from the body-cells in each new organism. In Weismann's theory hereditary transmission of characters depends wholly, in Galton's it depends mainly, on this undeveloped residue. The process of throwing off gemmules by the cells of the personal structure, which Galton still admits, is held by him to be of minor importance, because it is only needed to account for hereditary transmission of characters acquired through individual experience, and of this he finds hardly any evidence. Weismann, finding no evidence of it, is led to reject wholly the corresponding assumption. Selection Verifica tion of the Theory. Darwin's Works. [1846 —which occurs, for example, where a species of butterfly which is not specially protected against enemies has the external appearance of a protected species. This subject of "mimicry" was founded by H. W. Bates in "Contributions to an Insect Fauna of the Amazons Valley" (Transactions of the Linnean Society, 1862). And among the most fruitful applications of 'Darwinism" are the botanical works of Darwin himself. With a brief reference to them we may conclude the section, thus returning to the subject with which we started. The remarkable thing in Darwin's botanical works is their peculiarly effective "revival of teleology" from the evolutionary point of view. Of these works the two most important are "The Various Contrivances by which Orchids are fertilised by Insects" (1862) and "The Effects of Cross- and Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom" (1876). The starting-point for these was given by C. K. Sprengel's "Secret of Nature Displayed" (1793), which Darwin had read in 1841 by Robert Brown's advice. Sprengel discovered that in many cases pollen is of necessity carried by insects to the stigma of another flower. What Darwin did was to prove experimentally that there is an advantage in the cross-fertilisation of different plants, and then to explain contrivances for cross-fertilisation as means of gaining this advantage. The natural cause of this teleological relation between flowers and insects is found in the struggle for existence. Those species of plants that vary in such directions as to evolve contrivances for cross-fertilisation survive by leaving more vigorous and more numerous offspring than results from selffertilisation. The bearing of this generalisation-which has been summed up in the maxim, "Nature abhors close fertilisation" on the problem of heredity is obvious; and in recent speculations on the subject it has already begun to display that unlimited suggestiveness which is one of the distinctive. marks of Darwin's work. D'ARCY POWER. Medicine and Surgery. MUCH dissatisfaction had been felt at the attitude which the two great corporate bodies, the Royal College of Physicians and the College of Surgeons, had adopted towards the bulk of the profession in the earlier years of the century. Their position was too conservative and too exclusive to render them fitting 1865] representative bodies, The Medical Act of 1858 materially improved the position of the medical practitioner, but, as it left the individual licensing bodies in possession of their powers, it did not go far in producing order from chaos. The new Act gave a legal definition of the medical profession. It directed the establishment and maintenance of a Medical Register, by which the public and its courts of justice might distinguish “qualified" practitioners of medicine from pretenders and those who were not lawfully qualified. It gave to each registered qualification an equal currency in all parts of the British Empire. It created a superintending Council for the purposes of the Act, and it empowered this Council to strike off the Register the names of persons who should be convicted of crime or whose professional conduct it should consider infamous. It authorised the Council to impeach before the Privy Council any licensing body who should grant its diploma on insufficient conditions of study, or after an improper examination. It failed, however, to provide for The Medical Profession [1846 a complete examination, and it was amended by the Medical Acts of 1870 and 1886, though its chief clauses still hold good. The most remarkable event in the period under consideration was the discovery and introduction into practice of general Anæs thetics. SIR JAMES YOUNG SIMPSON. (From the statue in Prince's Street, Edinburgh.) anæsthesia. The local use of chloric ether to deaden pain had been known to dentists for some time before 1844, but until that year general anesthesia had never been induced for any surgical purpose. On December 11th, 1844, Horace Wells, a dentist in Massachusetts, inhaled nitrous oxide whilst another dentist extracted an aching tooth. His successful result proved the starting-point of a long series of experiments, in which another dentist, William Thomas Green Morton, took a leading part. He rendered himself insensible by inhaling sulphuric ether on September 30th, 1846, and from that date the use of |