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Cranial Dome of Pithecanthropus erectus from river gravel in Java.

Skull of a Greek from an ancient Cemetery.

THE

KINGDOM OF MAN

BY

E. RAY LANKESTER
\v

M.A. D.Sc. LL.D. F.R.S.

HONORARY FELLOW OF EXETER COLLEGE, OXFORD; CORRESPONDENT

OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE ; EMERITUS PROFESSOR

OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON ; PRESIDENT

OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE

ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE

DIRECTOR OF THE NATURAL HISTORY DEPARTMENTS OF THE
BRITISH MUSEUM

LONDON
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1907

:;ws

EXTINCT ANIMALS

Prof. E. RAY LANKESTER, F.R.S.

h a Portrait of the Author, and 218 ot
Illustrations

Demy 8vo. Price 7s. 6d. net

DESCRIPTIVE NOTE.

THE author gives us here a reep at the wonderful
history of the kinds of animals which no longer
exist on the surface of the globe in a living state,
though once they flourished and held their own.
Young and old readers will alike enjoy Prof. Lan-
kester's interesting narrative of these strange
creatures, some of which became extinct millions
of years ago, others within our own memory. The
author's account of the finding of their extant
remains, their probable habits and functions of
life, and their places in the world's long history,
is illustrated profusely from point to point, adding
greatly to the entertainment of the story.

Nnttire: "... We give the book a hearty welcome, feel-
ing sure that its perusal will draw many young recruits to the
army of naturalists, and many readers to its pages."

The Times: " There has been published no book on this
subject combining so successfully the virtues of accuracy and
attractiveness . . . Dr. Lankester's methods as an expositor
are well known, but ihey have never been more pleasantly
exemplified than in the present book."

The Atlienceutn: "Examples of Extinct Animals and
their living representatives Professor Lankester has described
with a masterly hand in these present pages."

LONDON
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DESCRIPTION OF THE FRONTISPIECE

The upper figure is from a cast of the celebrated specimen found
in a river gravel in Java, probably of as great age as the palaeolithic
gravels of Europe. Though rightly to be regarded as a ' man '—the
creature which possessed this skull has been given the name 'Pithecan-
thropus.' The shape of the cranial dome differs from that of a well-
developed European human skull (shewn in the lower photograph, that of
a Greek skull) in the same features as do the very ancient prehistoric
skulls from the Belgian caves of Spey, and from the Neanderthal of the
Rhineland. These differences are, however, measurably greater in the
Javanese skull.

The three great features of difference are: (i) the great size of the
eye-brow ridges (the part below and in front of A in the figures) in the
Java skull ; (2) the much greater relative height of the middle and back
part of the cranial dome (lines e and /) in the Greek skull ; (3) the much
greater prominence in the Greek skull of the front part of the cranial dome
— the prefrontal area or frontal ' boss ' (the part in front of the line A C,
the depth ^Df which is shewn by the line d).

The parts of the cranial cavity thus obviously more capacious in the
Greek skull are precisely those which are small in the Apes and overlie
those convolutions of the brain which have been specially developed in
Man as compared with the highest Apes.

The line AB in both the figures is the ophryo-tentorial line. It is
drawn from the ophryon (the mid-point in the line drawn across the
narrowest part of the frontal bone just above the eye-brow ridges), which
corresponds externally to the most anterior limit of the brain, to the
extra- tentorial point (between the occipital ridges) and is practically the
base line of the cerebrum. The lines e and /are perpendiculars on this
base line, the first half-way between A and B, the second half-way between
the first and the extra-tentorial point.

C is the point known to craniologists as ' bregma,' the meeting point of
the frontal and the two parietal bones.

The line A C is drawn as a straight line joining A and C— but if the
skull is accurately posed it corresponds to the edge of the plane at right
angles to the sagittal plane of the skull— which traverses both bregma (C)
and ophryon (A) — and where it ' cuts ' the skull marks off the prefrontal
area or boss. (See for the full-face view of this area in the two skulls — Figs, i
and 2.) The line d is a perpendicular let fall from the point of greatest
prominence of the prefrontal area on to the prefrontal plane. It indicates
the depth of the prefrontal cerebral region. Drawn on both sides on the
surface of the bone and looked at from in front (the white dotted line in
Figs, i and 2) it gives the maximum breadth of the prefrontal area.

By dividing the ophryo-tentorial line into 100 units, and using those
units as measures, the depths of the brain cavity in the regions plumbed
by the lines d, e, and /, can be expressed numerically and their differences
in a series of skulls stated in percentage of the ophryo-tentorial length.

210003

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.— NATURE'S INSURGENT SON

CHAPTER H.—THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE, 1881-1906 66

CHAPTER III.— NATURE'S REVENGES: THE SLEEP-
ING SICKNESS .... 159

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FRONTISPIECE :— Profile views of the Cranial Dome of Pithe-
canthropus erectus, the ape-like man from
an ancient river gravel in Java, and of a
Greek skull.

FIG. i.— Frontal view of the Cranial Dome of Pithecanthropus 16
FIG. 2. — Frontal view of the same Greek skull as that shown in

the frontispiece ... x6

FIG. 3.— Eoliths, of 'borer' shape, from Ightham, Kent ... 18

FIG. 4.— Eoliths of trinacrial shape, from Ightham, Kent ... 20

FIG. 5.— Brain casts of four large Mammals 23

FIG. 6. — Spironema pallidum, the microbe of Syphilis discovered

by Fritz Schaudinn 37

FIG. 7.— The Canals in Mars 43

FIG. 8. — The Canals in Mars 44

FIG. 9. — Becquerel's shadow-print obtained by rays from Uranium

Salt 73

FIG. 10. — Diagrams of the visible lines of the Spectrum given by

incandescent Helium and Radium 76

FIG. ii. — The transformation of Radium Emanation into Helium

(spectra) ... 83

FIG. 12. — Dry-plate photograph of a Nebula and surrounding

stars 90

vii

viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

FlG. 13. — The Freshwater Jelly fish, ' Limnocodium ... ... 97

FlG. 14. — Polyp of Limnocodium ... ... ... ... ... 97

FIG. 15. — Sense-organ of Limnocodium 97

FlG. 16. — The Freshwater Jelly-fish of Lake Tanganyika ... 98

FlG. 17. — Sir Harry Johnston's specimen of the Okapi 99

FlG. 1 8. — Bandoliers cut from the striped skin of the Okapi ... 99

FlG. 19. — Skull of the horned male of the Okapi 100

FlG. 20. — The metamorphosis of the young of the common Eel... 101
FlG. 21. — A unicellular parasite of the common Octopus, pro-
ducing spermatozoa 102

FlG. 22. — The Coccidium, a microscopic parasite of the Rabbit,

producing spermatozoa ... ... ... ... ... 102

FlG. 23. — Spermatozoa of a unicellular parasite inhabiting a

Centipede 103

FlG. 24. — The motile fertilizing elements (antherozoids or sper-
matozoa) of a peculiar cone-bearing tree, the Cycas

revoluta ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 104

FlG. 25. — The gigantic extinct Reptile, Triceratops 106

FlG. 26. — A large carnivorous Reptile from the Triassic rocks of

North Russia 107

FlG. 27. — The curious fish Drepanaspis, from the Old Red Sand-
stone of Germany 107

FlG. 28. — The oldest Fossil Fish known 108

FlG. 29. — The skull and lower jaw of the ancestral Elephant,

Palceomastodon, from Egypt ... ... ... ... 109

FlG. 30. — The latest discovered skull of Palceomastodon ... 110

FlG. 31. — Skulls of Meritherium, an Elephant ancestor, from the

Upper Eocene of Egypt in

FlG. 32. — The nodules on the roots of bean-plants and the nitro-
gen-fixing microbe, Bacillus radicola, which produces

them 114

FIG. 33. — The continuity of the protoplasm of vegetable cells ... 116
FlG. 34. — Diagram of the structures present in a typical organic

'cell' 117

FIG. 35. — The Number of the Chromosomes 119

FIG. 36. — The Number of the Chromosomes ... ... ... 120

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ix

PAGE

FlGS. 37 to 42. — Phagocytes engulphing disease germs — drawn by

Metschmkoff ... ... ... ... ... ^6-7

P'lG. 43. — A Phagocyte containing three Spirilla, the germs of

relapsing fever, whichjt has engulphed 137

FlG. 44. — The life-history of the Malaria Parasite... ... ... 142

FlG. 45. — The first blood-cell parasite described, the Lankesterella

of Frog's blood ... ... ... ... ... ... 144

FlG. 46. — Various kinds of Trypanosomes 145

FlG. 47. — The Laboratory of the Marine Biological Association

on the Citadel Hill, Plymouth 155

FIG. 48. — The Tsetze fly, Glossina morsitans ... ... ... 172

FIG. 49. — The Trypanosome of Frog's blood 173

FlG. 50 — The Trypanosome which causes the Sleeping Sickness 176
FIG. 5 1.— The Trypanosome of the disease called " Dourine " ... 1 77
FlGS. 52 to 56. — Stages in the growth and multiplication of a
Trypanosome which lives for part of its life in the
blood of the little owl, Athene noctua, and for the
other part in the gut of the common Gnat (Culex) 180-3

PREFACE

THIS little volume is founded on three discourses which I have
slightly modified for the present purpose, and have endeavoured
to render interesting by the introduction of illustrative process
blocks, which are described sufficiently fully to form a large extension
of the original text.

The first, entitled * Natiire's Insurgent Son,' formed, under
another title, the Romanes lecture at Oxford in 1905. Its object
is to exhibit in brief the ' Kingdom of Man,' to shew that there
is undue neglect in the taking over of that possession by mankind,
and to urge upon our Universities the duty of acting the leading
part in removing that neglect.

The second is an account, which served as the presidential
address to the British Association at York in 1906, of the progress
made in the last quarter of a century towards the assumption of
his kingship by slowly-moving Man.

The third, reprinted from the Quarterly Review, is a more
detailed account of recent attempts to deal with a terrible disease —
the Sleeping Sickness of tropical Africa — and furnishes an example
of one of the innumerable directions in which Man brings down
disaster on his head by resisting the old rule of selection of the fit
and destruction of the unfit, and is painfully forced to the conclusion
that knowledge of Nature must be sought and control of her processes
eventually obtained. I am glad to be able to state that as a result of
the representations of the Tropical Diseases Committee of the Royal
Society, and, as I am told, in some measure in consequence of the
explanation of the state of things given in this essay, funds have been
provided by the Colonial Office for the support of a professorship of

xi

xii PREFACE

Protozoology in the University of London, to which Mr. E. A.
Minchin has been appointed. It is recognized that the only way in
which we can hope to deal effectually with s^tch diseases as the Sleeping
Sickness is by a greatly increased knowledge of the nature and
life-history of the parasitic Protozoa which produce those diseases.

I have to thank Mr. John Murray for permission to reprint
the article on Sleeping Sickness, and I am also greatly indebted
to scientific colleagues for assistance in the survey of progress given
in the second discourse. Amongst these I desire especially to
mention Mr. Frederick Soddy, F.R.S., Prof. H. H. Turner,
F.R.S., Prof. Sydney Vines, F.R.S., Mr. MacDougal of Oxford,
and Prof. Sherrington, F.R.S. To Mr. Perceval Lowell I owe
my thanks for permission to copy two of his drawings of Mars,
and to the Royal Astronomical Society for the loan of the star-
picture on p. 90.

E. RAY LANKESTER,

January, 1907.

THE KINGDOM OF MAN

CHAPTER I

NATURE'S INSURGENT SON

i. THE OUTLOOK.

IT has become more and more a matter of conviction
to me — and I believe that I share that conviction with
a large body of fellow students both in this country
and other civilized states — that the time has arrived
when the true relation of Nature to Man has been so
clearly ascertained that it should be more generally
known than is at present the case, and that this know-
ledge should form far more largely than it does at this
moment, the object of human activity and endeavour,
— that it should be, in fact, the guide of state-
government, the trusted basis of the development of
human communities. That it is not so already, that
men should still allow their energies to run in other
directions, appears to some of us a thing so monstrous,
so injurious to the prosperity of our fellow men, that
we must do what lies within our power to draw
attention to the conditions and circumstances which
attend this neglect, the evils arising from it, and the
benefits which must follow from its abatement.

2. THE WORD * NATURE.'

The signification attached to the word ' Nature ' is
by no means the same at the present day as it has
been in the past: as commonly used it is a word of

B

2 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

varied meanings and limitations, so that misconception
and confusion is liable to be associated with it. By
the professed student of modern sciences it is usually
understood as a name for the entire mechanism of
the universe, the kosmos in all its parts; and it is in
this sense that I use it. But many still identify
' Nature ' with a limited portion of that great system,
and even retain for it a special application to the
animals and plants of this earth and their immediate
surroundings. Thus we have the term ' natural history '
and the French term ' les sciences naturelles ' limited
to the study of the more immediate and concrete forms
of animals, plants, and crystals. There is some justifica-
tion for separating the conception of Nature as specially
concerned in the production and maintenance of living
things from that larger Nature which embraces, together
with this small but deeply significant area, the whole
expanse of the heavens in the one direction and Man
himself in the other. Giordano Bruno, who a little
more than 300 years ago visited Oxford and expounded
his views, was perhaps the first to perceive and teach
the unity of this greater Nature, anticipating thus in
his prophetic vision the conclusion which we now
accept as the result of an accumulated mass of evidence.
Shakespeare came into touch with Bruno's conception,
and has contrasted the more limited and a larger (though
not the largest) view of Nature in the words of Perdita
and Polyxenes. Says Perdita: —

' . . . the fairest flowers o' the season

Are our carnations, and streak'd gillyvors,

Which some call Nature's bastards ; of that kind

Our rustic garden's barren ; and 1 care not

To get slips of them. . . . For I have heard it said,

There is an art which, in their piedness, shaies

With great creating nature.'

NATURE'S INSURGENT SON 3

To which Polyxenes replies : —

* Say there be—

Yet nature is made better by no mean,
But nature makes that mean : so, over that art,
Which, you say, adds to nature, is an art
That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry
A gentle scion to the wildest stock ;
And make conceive a bark of baser kind
By bud of nobler race ; this is an art
Which does mend nature, — change it, rather : but
The art itself is nature.'

The larger proportion of so-called educated people
even at the present day have not got beyond Perdita's
view of Nature. They regard the territory of Nature
as a limited one, the play-ground or sport of all sorts
of non-natural demons and fairies, spirits and occult
agencies. Apart from any definite scheme or concep-
tion of these operations, they personify Nature and
attribute a variety of virtues and tendencies to her for
which there is no justification. We are told, according
to the fancy of the speaker, that such a course is in
accordance with Nature ; that another course is con-
trary to Nature; we are urged to return to Nature and
we are also urged to resist Nature. We hear that
Nature will find a remedy for every ill, that Nature is
just, that Nature is cruel, that Nature is sweet and our
loving mother. On the one hand Man is regarded as
outside of and opposed to Nature, and his dealings are
contrasted favourably or unfavourably with those of
Nature. On the other hand we are informed that Man
must after all submit to Nature and that it is useless
to oppose her. These contradictory views are in fact
fragments of various systems of philosophy of various
ages in which the word ' Nature ' has been assigned
equally various limitations and extensions. Without
attempting to discuss the history and justification of

B 2

4 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

these different uses of the word Nature, I think that
I may here use the word Nature as indicating the
entire kosmos of which this cooling globe with all upon
it is a portion.

3. NATURE-SEARCHERS.

The discovery of regular processes, of expected
effects following upon specified antecedents, of constant
properties and qualities in the material around him,
has from the earliest recorded times been a chief
occupation of Man and has led to the attainment by
Man of an extraordinarily complex control of the con-
ditions in which his life is carried on. But it was not
until Bruno's conception of the unity of terrestrial
nature with that of the kosmos had commended itself
that a deliberate and determined investigation of natural
processes, with a view to their more complete appre-
hension, was instituted. One of the earliest and most
active steps in this direction was the foundation, less
than 250 years ago, of the Royal Society of London for
the Promotion of Natural Knowledge, by a body of
students who had organized their conferences and
inquiries whilst resident in Oxford.1

1 The foundation of the Royal Society of London is most intimately
connected with the University of Oxford. Dr. Wallis, an original
member, writes : — ' I take its first ground and foundation to have been
in London about the year 1645, when Dr. Wilkins and others met
weekly at a certain day and hour. . . . About the year 1648-9
some of our company were removed to Oxford ; first Dr. Wilkins, then
I, and soon after Dr. Goddard. Those in London continued to meet
there as before (and we with them, when we had occasion to be there),
and those of us at Oxford ; with Dr. Ward (since Bishop of Salisbury),
Dr. Ralph Bathurst (now President of Trinity College in Oxford),
Dr. Petty (since Sir William Petty), Dr. Willis (then an eminent phy-
sician in Oxford), and divers others, continued such meetings in Oxford

NATURE'S INSURGENT SON 5

All over Western Europe such associations or aca-
demies for the building up of the New Philosophy
(as it was called here) came into existence. It is a fact
which is strangely overlooked at the present day, when
the assumption is made that the acquirement of a know-
ledge of Greek grammar is the traditional and imme-
morial occupation of Oxford students — that until the
modern days of the eighteenth century ( ' modern ' in
the history of Oxford) Greek was less known in Oxford
than Hebrew is at present, and that the study of Nature
— Nature-knowledge and Nature-control — was the appro-
priate occupation of her learned men. It is indeed
a fact that the very peculiar classical education at
present insisted on in Oxford, and imposed by her on
the public schools of the country, is a modern innova-
tion, an unintentional and, in a biological sense, * morbid '
outgrowth of that 'Humanism' to which a familiarity
with the dead languages was, but is no longer, the
pathway.

4. THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION.

What is sometimes called the scientific movement,
but may be more appropriately described as the Nature-
searching movement, rapidly attained an immense

and brought those studies into fashion there ; meetings first at
Dr. Petty's lodgings (in an apothecarie's house) because of the con-
venience of inspecting drugs and the like, as there was occasion ; and
after his remove to Ireland (though not so constantly) at the lodgings of
Dr. Wilkins, then Warden of Wadham College, and after his removal
to Trinity College in Cambridge, at the lodgings of the Honourable
Mr. Robert Boyle, then resident for divers years in Oxford. ... In
the meanwhile our company at Gresham College being much again
increased by the accession of divers eminent and noble persons, upcn
his Majesty's return, we were (about the beginning of the year 1662) by
his Majesty's grace and favour incorporated by the name of the Royal
Society.'

6 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

development. In the latter half of the last century
this culminated in so complete a knowledge of the
movements of the heavenly bodies, their chemical
nature and physical condition — so detailed a determina-
tion of the history of the crust of this earth and of the
living things upon it, of the chemical and physical
processes which go on in Man and other living things,
and of the structure of Man as compared with the
animals most like him, and of the enormous length of
time during which Man has existed on the earth — that
it became possible to establish a general doctrine of
the evolution of the kosmos, with more special detail
in regard to the history of this earth and the develop-
ment of Man from a lower animal ancestry. Animals
were, in their turn, shown to have developed from
simplest living matter, and this from less highly
elaborated compounds of chemical * elements ' differen-
tiated at a still earlier stage of evolution. There is,
it may be said without exaggeration, no school or body
of thinkers at the present day who are acquainted
with the facts now ascertained, which denies the
orderly evolution of the kosmos by the regular opera-
tion of a more or less completely ascertained series of
properties resident in the material of which it consists.1
The process of evolution — the interaction of these
ascertainable, if not fully ascertained properties — has
led (it is held), in the case of the cooling cinder which
we call the earth — by an inevitable and predestined
course — to the formation of that which we call living
matter and eventually of Man himself. From this
process all disorderly or arbitrary interferences must,
it seems, be excluded. The old fancies as to presid-
ing demons or fairies — which it was imagined had for
1 See, however, the letter from the Times, reprinted on p. 62.

NATURE'S INSURGENT SON 7

their business to interrupt the supposed feeble and
limited efforts of Nature, as yet unexplored and un-
appreciated— have passed out of mind. The consensus
is complete : Man is held to be a part of Nature, a
product of the definite and orderly evolution which is
universal ; a being resulting from and driven by the
one great nexus of mechanism which we call Nature.
He stands alone, face to face with that relentless
mechanism. It is his destiny to understand and to
control it.

5. UNWARRANTED INFERENCES FROM THE
EVOLUTION OF MAN.

There are not wanting those who, accepting this
conclusion, seek to belittle Man and endeavour to
represent that the veil is lifted, that all is ' explained '
obvious, commonplace, and mean in regard to the
significance of life and of Man, because it has become
clear that the kosmic process has brought them forth
in due order. There are others who rightly perceive
that life is no common property of our cooling matter,
but unique and exceptional, and that Man stands apart
from and above all natural products, whether animate
or inanimate. Some of these thinkers appear to
accept the conclusion that if life and Man are regarded
as products of the kosmic process — that is, of Nature
— ' life ' and ' Man ' lose so much in importance and
significance that dire consequences must follow to
Man's conception of his dignity and to the essential
features of his systems of conduct and social organiza-
tion. Accordingly they cling to the belief that living
matter and Man have not proceeded from an orderly
evolution of Nature, but are ' super ' natural. It is

8 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

found on the other hand, by many who have considered
these speculations, and hold no less explicitly than do
the * supernaturalists ' that life is a momentous and
peculiar feature of our earth's surface and Man the
isolated and unparalleled 'piece of work,' ' the beauty
of the world,' ' the paragon of animals ' — it is found
by many such, I say, that nothing is gained in regard
to our conception of Man's nobility and significance
by supposing that he and the living matter which has
given rise to him, are not the outcome of that system
of orderly process which we call Nature.

There is one consideration in regard to this matter
which, it seems, is often overlooked and should be
emphasized. It is sometimes — and perhaps with a
sufficient excuse in a want of acquaintance with Nature
—held by those who oppose the conclusion that Man
has been evolved by natural processes, that the pro-
ducts of Nature are arbitrary, haphazard, and due to
chance, and that Man cannot be conceived of as
originating by chance. This notion of ' chance ' is
a misleading figment inherited by the modern world
from days of blank ignorance. The ' Nature-searchers '
of to-day admit no such possibility as { chance.' It
will be in the recollection of many here, that a lead-
ing writer and investigator of the Victorian Era, the
physicist John Tyndall, pointed out in a celebrated
address delivered at Belfast that according to the con-
ceptions of the mechanism of Nature arrived at by
modern science — the structure of that mechanism is
such that it would have been possible for a being of
adequate intelligence inspecting the gaseous nebula from
which our planetary system has evolved to have fore-
seen in that luminous vapour the Belfast audience and
the professor addressing it !

NATURE'S INSURGENT SON 9

The fallacy that in given but unknown circum-
stances anything whatever may occur in spite of the
fact that some one thing has been irrevocably arranged
to occur, is a common one. 1 It is correct to assume
in the absence of any pertinent knowledge (if we are
compelled to estimate the probabilities) that one event
is as likely as another to occur ; but nevertheless
there is no ' chance ' in the matter since the event has
been already determined, and might be predicted by
those possessing the knowledge which we lack. Thus
then it appears that the conclusion that Man is a
part of Nature is by no means equivalent to asserting
that he has originated by ' blind chance ' ; it is in
fact a specific assertion that he is the predestined out-
come of an orderly — and to a large extent ' perceptible '
— mechanism.2

1 There is a tendency among writers on Variation, as affording the
opportunity for the operation of Natural Selection, to assume that the
variations presented by organisms are minute variations in every
direction around a central point. Those observers who have done
useful work in showing the definite and limited character of organic
variations have very generally assumed that they are opposing a com-
monly held opinion that variation is of this equally distributed character.
I cannot find that Mr. Darwin made any such assumption ; and it is
certain, and must on reflection have been recognized by all naturalists,
that the variations by the selection and intensification of which natural
selection has produced distinct forms or species, and in the course of
time altogether new groups of plants and animals, are strictly limited to
definite lines rendered possible, and alone possible, by the constitution
of the living matter of the parental organism. We have no reason to
suppose that the offspring of a beetle could in the course of any number
of generations present variations on which selection could operate so as
to eventually produce a mammalian vertebrate ; or that, in fact, the
general result of the process of selection of favourable variations in the
past has not been ab initio limited by the definite and restricted possi-
bilities characteristic of the living substance of the parental organisms
of each divergent line or branch of the pedigree.

io THE KINGDOM OF MAN

6. NATURE'S MODE OF PRODUCING ORGANIC
FORMS.

The general process by which the higher and more
elaborate forms of life, and eventually man himself, have
been produced has been shown by Darwin to depend
upon two important properties of living matter mani-
fested in connexion with the multiplication of individuals.
Living matter has a special property of adding to its
bulk by taking up the chemical elements which it re-
quires and building up the food so taken as additional
living matter. It further has the power of separating
from itself minute particles or germs which feed and
grow independently, and thus multiply their kind. It is
a fundamental character of this process of reproduction
that the detached or pullulated germ inherits or carries
with it from its parents the peculiarities of form and
structure of its parent. This is the property known as
Heredity. It is most essentially modified by another
property — namely, that though eventually growing to be
closely like the parent, the germ (especially when it is
formed, as is usual, by the fusion of two germs from
two separate parents) is never identical in all respects
with the parent. It shows Variation. In virtue of
Heredity, the new congenital variations shown by a new
generation are transmitted to their offspring when in
due time they pullulate or produce germs. Man has
long been aware of this ; and, by selecting variations
of beasts, birds, or plants agreeable or useful to him,
has intensified such variations and produced animals and
plants in many features very unlike those with which he
started.

It was Darwin's merit to show that a process of selec-
tion which he called ' Natural Selection ' must take place

NATURE'S INSURGENT SON n

in the free untouched conditions under which animals
and plants exist, and have existed for ages, on this globe.
Both animals and plants produce germs, or young, in
excess — usually in vast excess. The world, the earth's
surface, is practically full, that is to say, fully occupied.
Only one pair of young can grow up to take the place
of the pair — male and female — which have launched a
dozen, or it may be as many as a hundred thousand,
young individuals on the world. The property of Varia-
tion ensures that amongst this excess of young there are
many differences. Eventually those survive which are
most fitted to the special conditions under which this
particular organism has to live. The conditions may,
and indeed in long lapses of time must, change, and
thus some variation not previously favoured will gain
the day and survive. The ' struggle for existence ' of
Darwin is the struggle amongst all the superabundant
young of a given species, in a given area, to gain the
necessary food, to escape voracious enemies, and gain
protection from excesses of heat, cold, moisture, and
dryness. One pair in the new generation — only one
pair — survive for every parental pair. Animal popula-
tion does not increase : ' Increase and multiply ' has
never been said by Nature to her lower creatures.
Locally, and from time to time, owing to exceptional
changes, a species may multiply here and decrease there;
but it is important to realize that the * struggle for
existence' in Nature — that is to say, among the animals
and plants of this earth untouched by man — is a
desperate one, however tranquil and peaceful the battle-
field may appear to us. The struggle for existence
takes place, not as a clever French writer l glibly informs

1 M. Paul Bourget of the Academic Franchise, is not only a charming
writer of modern ' novels,' but claims to be a ' psychologist,' a title

12 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

his readers, between different species, but between indi-
viduals of the same species, brothers and sisters and
cousins. The struggle between a beast of prey which
seeks to nourish itself and the buffalo which defends
its life with its horns is not * the struggle for existence '
so named by Darwin. Moreover, the struggle among
the members of a species in natural conditions differs
totally from the mere struggle for advancement or wealth

which perhaps may be conceded to every author who writes of human
character. His works are so deservedly esteemed, and his erudition is
as a rule, so unassailable, that in selecting him as an example of the
frequent misrepresentation, among literary men, of Darwin's doctrine,
I trust that my choice may be regarded as a testimony of my admiration
for his art. In his novel Un Divorce, published in 1904, M. Bourget,
says : ' La lutte entre les especes, cette inflexible loi de 1'univers animal,
a sa correspondance exacte dans le monde des idees. Certaines men-
talites constituent de veritables especes intellectuelles qui ne peuvent
pas durer a cote les unes des autres ' (Edition Plon, p. 317). This in-
flexible law of the animal universe, the struggle between species, is one
which is quite unknown to zoologists. The ' struggle for existence,' to
which Darwin assigned importance, is not a struggle between different
species, but one between closely similar members of the same species.
The struggle between species is by no means universal, but in fact very
rare. The preying of one species on another is a moderated affair of
balance and adjustment which may be described rather as an accommo-
dation than as a struggle.

A more objectionable misinterpretation of the naturalists' doctrine
of the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence is that made
by journalists and literary politicians, who declare, according to their
political bias, either that science rightly teaches that the gross quality
measured by wealth and strength alone can survive and should there-
fore alone be cultivated, or that science (and especially Darwinism) has
done serious injury to the progress of mankind by authorizing this
teaching. Both are wrong, and owe their error to self-satisfied flippancy
and traditional ignorance in regard to nature-knowledge and the teach-
ing of Darwin. The 'fittest' does not mean the 'strongest.' The
causes of survival under Natural Selection are very far indeed from
being rightly described as mere strength, nor are they baldly similar to
the power of accumulating wealth. Frequently in Nature the more
obscure and feeble survive in the struggle because of their modesty and
suitability to given conditions, whilst the rich are sent empty away and
the mighty perish by hunger.

NATURE'S INSURGENT SON 13

with which uneducated writers so frequently compare
it. It differs essentially in this — that in Nature's struggle
for existence, death, immediate obliteration, is the fate
of the vanquished, whilst the only reward to the victors
— few, very few, but rare and beautiful in the fitness
which has carried them to victory — is the permission
to reproduce their kind — to carry on by heredity to
another generation the specific qualities by which they
triumphed.

It is not generally realized how severe is the pres-
sure and competition in Nature — not between different
species, but between the immature population of one
and the same species, precisely because they are of the
same species and have exactly the same needs. From
a human point of view the pressure under which many
wild things live is awful in its severity and relentless
tenacity. Not only are new forms established by natural
selection, but the old forms, when they exactly fit the
mould presented as it were for competitive filling, are
maintained by the same unremitting process. A dis-
tinctive quality in the beauty of natural productions
(in which man delights) is due to the unobtrusive yet
tremendous slaughter of the unfit which is incessantly
going on, and the absolute restriction of the privilege of
parentage to the happy few who attain to the standard
described as ' the fittest.'

7. THE LIMITED VARIETY OF NATURE'S

PRODUCTS.

The process of development of an immense variety
of animal and vegetable forms has proceeded in this
way through countless ages of geologic time, but it
must not be supposed that any and every conceivable
form and variety has been produced. There are only

14 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

two great diverging lines of descent from original living
matter — only the animals and the plants. And in each
of these there are and have been only a limited number
of branches to the pedigree — some coming off at a lower
level, others at higher points when more elaborate struc-
ture has been attained. It is easy to imagine groups of
both plants and animals with characters and structures
which have never existed and never will exist. The
limitation of the whole process in spite of its enormous
duration in time, its gigantic output and variety, is a
striking and important fact. Linnaeus said, ' There are
just as many species as in the beginning the Infinite
Being created ' ; and the modern naturalist can go no
further than the paraphrase of this, and must say, * There
are and have been just so many and just so few varieties
of animal and vegetable structure on this earth as it
was possible for the physical and chemical contents of
the still molten globe to form up to the hour now
reached.'

8. THE EMERGENCE OF MAN.

As to how and when man emerged from the terres-
trial animal population so strictly controlled and moulded
by natural selection is a matter upon which we gain
further information year by year. There must be many
here who remember, as I do, the astounding and almost
sudden discovery some forty-five years ago of abundant
and overwhelming evidence that man had existed in
Western Europe as a contemporary of the mammoth
and rhinoceros, the hyaena and the lion. The dispute
over the facts submitted to the scientific world by
Boucher de Perthes was violent and of short duration.
The immense antiquity of man was established and
accepted on all sides just before Mr. Darwin published

NATURE'S INSURGENT SON 15

his book on The Origin of Species. The palaeolithic
implements, though not improbably made 150,000 years
ago, do not, any more than do the imperfect skulls
occasionally found in association with them, indicate a
condition of the human race much more monkey-like than
is presented by existing savage races (see Figs, i and 2
and Frontispiece, and their explanations). The imple-
ments themselves are manufactured with great skill
and artistic feeling. Within the last ten years much
rougher flint implements, of peculiar types, have been
discovered in gravels which are 500 feet above the
level of the existing rivers (see Figs. 3 and 4). These
" Eoliths" of the South of England indicate a race of
men of less-developed skill than the makers of the
Palaeoliths, and carry the antiquity of man at least
as far back beyond the Palaeoliths as these are from
the present day. We have as yet found no remains
giving the direct basis for conclusions on the subject ;
but judging by the analogy (not by any means a
conclusive method) furnished by the history of other
large animals now living alongside of man — such as the
horse, the rhinoceros, the tapir, the wolf, the hyaena,
and the bear — it is not improbable that it was in the
remote period known as the lower Miocene — remote even
as compared with the gravels in which Eoliths occur —
that Natural Selection began to favour that increase in
the size of the brain of a large and not very powerful
semi-erect ape which eventuated, after some hundreds
of thousands of years, in the breeding-out of a being
with a relatively enormous brain-case, a skilful hand,
and an inveterate tendency to throw stones, flourish
sticks, protect himself in caves, and in general to defeat
aggression and satisfy his natural appetites by the use
of his wits rather than by strength alone — in which,

i6

FlGS. I AND 2.

Photographs of a front view of the two skulls shewn in profile in the
frontispiece, taken so as to shew the breadth of the ' forehead ' or pre-
frontal area, which is seen to be very much greater in the Greek skull
(Fig. 2) than in the Javanese Pithecanthropus (Fig. i). The prefrontal
area is marked out by a black dotted line, the outline of a plane (the pre-
frontal plane) which is at right angles to the sagittal plane and passes
through the meeting point of the frontal with the two parietal bones
above ; whilst below it passes through the median point called 'ophryon.'
The plane of the picture is parallel with this prefrontal plane. The white
dotted line gives the breadth of the boss-like prefrontal area. It is
identical in position with the line d in the side view of the same skulls
given in the frontispiece. The black dotted line is identical in position
with the line A C in those figures. The two specimens are equally reduced
in the photograph. (Original).

i8

FIG. 3.

FIG. 3.

Photographs of eight Eoliths of one and the same shape, namely, with
a chipped or worked tooth-like prominence, rendering the flint fit for use
as a ' borer ' — photographed of half the actual size (linear measurement)
from specimens found near Ightham, Kent, in the high-level gravel—
which form part of the Prestwich collection in the Natural History
Museum, Cromwell Road, London. Many others of the same shape have
been found in the same locality. These and the trinacrial implements
photographed in Fig. 4 are far older than the oval and leaf-shaped ' palaeo-
liths ' of the low-lying gravels of the valleys of the Thames, Somme, and
other rivers. (Original).

C 2

20

FIG. 4.

FIG. 4

Photographs of six Eoliths of the ' shoulder-of-mutton ' or ' trinacrial
type — from the same locality and collection as those shewn in Fig. 3.
The photographs are of half the length of the actual specimens. A con-
siderable number of worked flints of this peculiar shape have been found
in the same locality. Possibly their shape enabled the primitive men who
'chipped' and used them to attach them by thongs to a stick or club.
The descriptive term ' trinacrial ' is suggested by me for these flints in
allusion to the form of the island of Sicily which they resemble.
(Original)

22 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

however, he was not deficient. Probably this creature
had nearly the full size of brain and every other physical
character of modern man, although he had not as yet
stumbled upon the art of making fire by friction, nor
converted his conventional grunts and groans, his
screams, laughter, and interjections into a language
corresponding to (and thenceforth developing) his power
of thought.

9. THE ENLARGED BRAIN.

The leading feature in the development and separa-
tion of man from amongst other animals is undoubtedly
the relatively enormous size of the brain in man, and
the corresponding increase in its activities and capacity.
It is a very striking fact that it was not in the ances-
tors of man alone that this increase in the size of the
brain took place at this same period, viz. the Miocene.
The great mammals such as the titanotherium, which
represented the rhinoceros in early Tertiary times, had
a brain which was in proportion to the bulk of the body,
not more than one-eighth the volume of the brain of
the modern rhinoceros (see Fig. 5). Other great mammals
of the earlier Tertiary period were in the same case ; and
the ancestors of the horse, which are better known than
those of any other modern animal, certainly had very
much smaller brains in proportion to the size of their
bodies than has their descendant.

We may well ask to what this sudden and marked
increase in the size of the brain in several lines of the
animal pedigree is due. It seems that the inborn
hereditary nervous mechanism by which many simple
and necessary movements of the body are controlled
and brought into relation with the outer world acting
upon the sense-organs, can be carried in a relatively

NATURE'S INSURGENT SON

23

small bulk of brain-substance. Fish, lizards, and croco-
diles with their small brains carry on a complex and
effective life of relation with their surroundings. It
appears that the increased bulk of cerebral substance
means increased ' educability ' — an increased power of
storing up individual experience — which tends to take
the place of the inherited mechanism with which it is
often in antagonism. The power of profiting by indi-
vidual experience, in fact educability, must in conditions
of close competition be, when other conditions are equal,
an immense advantage to its possessor. It seems that
we have to imagine that the adaptation of mammalian
form to the various conditions of life had in Miocene

FIG. 5.

Four casts of the brain-cavities of a series of large Ungulate Mammals
in order to shew the relatively small size of the cerebral hemispheres of
the extinct creature from which A is taken.

A is that of Dinoceras, a huge extinct Eocene mammal which was as
large as a Rhinoceros ; B is that of Hippopotamus ; C of Horse ; and D of
Rhinoceros.

times reached a point when further alteration and
elaboration of the various types, which we know then
existed, could lead to no advantage. The variations
presented for selection in the struggle for existence
presented no advantage— the ' fittest ' had practically
been reached, and was destined to survive with little

24 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

change. Assuming such a relative lull in the develop-
ment of mere mechanical form, it is obvious that the
opportunity for those individuals with the most ' edu-
cable ' brains to defeat their competitors would arise.
No marked improvement in the instrument being possible,
the reward, the triumph, the survival would fall to those
who possessed most skill in the use of the instrument.
And in successive generations the bigger and more
educable brains would survive and mate, and thus
bigger and bigger brains be produced.

It would not be difficult (though not, perhaps, profit-
able) to imagine the conditions which have favoured the
continuation of this process to a far greater length in
the Simian line of the pedigree than in other mamma-
lian groups. The result is that the creature called Man
emerged with an educable brain of some five or six
times the bulk (in proportion to his size and weight)
of that of any other surviving Simian. ' Great as is this
difference, it is one of the most curious facts in the
history of man's development that the bulk of his brain
does not appear to have continued to increase in any
very marked degree since early Palaeolithic times. The
cranial capacity of many savage races and of some of the
most ancient human skulls is only a little less than that
of the average man of highly-civilised race. The value
of the mental activities in which primitive man differs
from the highest apes may be measured in some degree
by the difference in the size of the man's and the ape's
brain; but the difference in the size of the brain of
Isaac Newton and an Australian black-fellow is not in
the remotest degree proportionate to the difference in
their mental qualities. Man, it would seem, at a very
remote period attained the extraordinary development
of brain which marked him off from the rest of the

NATURE'S INSURGENT SON 25

animal world, but has ever since been developing the
powers and qualities of this organ without increasing
its size, or materially altering in other bodily features.1

10. THE PROGRESS OF MAN.

The origin of Man by the process of Natural Selection
is one chapter in man's history ; another one begins
with the consideration of his further development and
his diffusion over the surface of the globe.

The mental qualities which have developed in Man,
though traceable in a vague and rudimentary condition
in some of his animal associates, are of such an unpre-
cedented power and so far dominate everything else in his
activities as a living organism, that they have to a very
large extent, if not entirely, cut him off from the general
operation of that process of Natural Selection and sur-
vival of the fittest which up to their appearance had been
the law of the living world. They justify the view that
Man forms a new departure in the gradual unfolding
of Nature's predestined scheme. Knowledge, reason,
self-consciousness, will, are the attributes of Man. It is
not my purpose to attempt to trace their development
from lower phases of mental activity in man's animal
ancestors, nor even to suggest the steps by which that

1 A short discussion of this subject and the introduction of the term
' educability ' was published in a paper by me entitled ' The Significance
of the Increased Size of the Cerebrum in recent as compared with
extinct Mammalia,' Cinquantenaire de la Societe de Biologic, Paris,
1899, pp. 48-51.

It has been pointed out to me by my friend Dr. Andrews, of the
Geological Department of the British Museum, that the brain cavity of
the elephants was already of relatively large size in the Eocene members
of that group, which may be connected with the persistence of these
animals through subsequent geological periods.

26 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

development has proceeded. What we call the will or
volition of Man — a discussion of the nature and limita-
tion of which would be impossible in these pages and
is happily not necessary for my present purpose — has
become a power in Nature, an imperium in imperio, which
has profoundly modified not only man's own history but
that of the whole living world and the face of the planet
on which he exists. Nature's inexorable discipline of
death to those who do not rise to her standard — survival
and parentage for those alone who do — has been from
the earliest times more and more definitely resisted by
the will of Man. If we may for the purpose of analysis,
as it were, extract Man from the rest of Nature of which
he is truly a product and part, then we may say that
Man is Nature's rebel. Where Nature says ' Die ! ' Man
says ' I will live.' According to the law previously in
universal operation, Man should have been limited in
geographical area, killed by extremes of cold or of heat,
subject to starvation if one kind of diet were unob-
tainable, and should have been unable to increase and
multiply, just as are his animal relatives, without losing
his specific structure and acquiring new physical charac-
ters according to the requirements of the new conditions
into which he strayed — should have perished except on
the condition of becoming a new morphological * species.'
But Man's wits and his will have enabled him to cross
rivers and oceans by rafts and boats, to clothe himself
against cold, to shelter himself from heat and rain, to
prepare an endless variety of food by fire, and to
' increase and multiply ' as no other animal without
change of form, without submitting to the terrible axe
of selection wielded by ruthless Nature over all other
living things on this globe. And as he has more and
more obtained this control over his surroundings, he has

NATURE'S INSURGENT SON 27

expanded that unconscious protective attitude towards his
immature offspring which natural selection had already
favoured and established in the animal race, into a
conscious and larger love for his tribe, his race, his
nationality, and his kind. He has developed speech,
the power of communicating, and above all of record-
ing and handing on from generation to generation his
thought and knowledge. He has formed communi-
ties, built cities, and set up empires. At every step of
his progress Man has receded further and further from
the ancient rule exercised by Nature/ He has advanced
so far and become so unfitted to the earlier rule, that
to suppose that Man can * return to Nature' is as un-
reasonable as to suppose that an adult animal can return
to its mother's womb.

In early tribal times natural selection still imposed
the death penalty on failure. The stronger, the more
cunning, the better armed, the more courageous tribe or
family group, exterminated by actual slaughter or starva-
tion the neighbouring tribes less gifted in one or all of
these qualities. But from what we know of the history
of warlike exterminating savage tribes at the present day
— as, for instance, the Masai of East Africa — it seems
unlikely that the method of extermination — that is, of
true natural selection — had much effect in man's develop-
ment after the very earliest period. Union and absorption
were more usual results of the contact of primitive tribes
than struggles to the death. The expulsion of one group
by another from a desired territory was more usual than
the destruction of the conquered. In spite of the fre-
quent assertions to the contrary, it seems that neither
the more ancient wars of mankind for conquest and
migration nor the present and future wars for commercial
privilege have any real equivalence to the simple removal

28 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

by death of the unfit and the survival and reproduction
of the fit, which we know as Natural Selection.1

The standard raised by the rebel man is not that of
' fitness ' to the conditions proffered by extra-human
nature, but is one of an ideal comfort, prosperity, and
conscious joy in life — imposed by the will of man and
involving a control and in important respects a subversion
of what were Nature's methods of dealing with life before
she had produced her insurgent son. The progress of
man in the acquirement of this control of Nature has
been one of enormous rapidity within the historical
period, and within the last two centuries has led on the
one hand to immensely increased facilities in the appli-
cation of mechanical power, in locomotion, in agriculture,
and in endless arts and industries ; and on the other hand
to the mitigation of disease and pain. The men whom
we may designate as ' the Nature-searchers ' — those who
founded the New Philosophy of the Invisible College at
Oxford and the Royal Society in London — have placed
boundless power in the hands of mankind.

ii. THE ATTAINMENT BY MAN OF THE KNOW-
LEDGE OF HIS RELATIONS TO NATURE.

But to many the greatest result achieved by the pro-
gress of Natural Knowledge seems not to have been so

1 It would be an error to maintain that the process of Natural Selec-
tion is entirely in abeyance in regard to Man. In an interesting book,
The Present Evolution of Man, Dr. Archdall Reid has shown that in
regard to zymotic diseases, and also in regard to the use of dangerous
drugs such as alcohol and opium, there is first of all the acquirement of
immunity by powerful races of men through the survival among them
of those strains tolerant of the disease or of the drug, and secondly, the
introduction of those diseases and drugs by the powerful immune race,

NATURE'S INSURGENT SON 29

much in its practical applications and its material gifts to
humanity as in the fact that Man has arrived through it
at spiritual emancipation and freedom of thought.

In the latter part of the last century man's place in
Nature became clearly marked out by the accumulation
of definite evidence. The significance and the im-
measurable importance of the knowledge of Nature to
philosophy and the highest regions of speculative thought
are expressed in the lines of one who most truly and with
keenest insight embodied in his imperishable verse the
wisdom and the aspirations of the Victorian age:—

' Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies :
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand
Little flower — but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.'

To many the nearer approach to that ' understanding '
has seemed the greatest and a sufficient result of scientific
researches. The recognition that such an understanding
leads to such vast knowledge would seem to ensure further
and combined effort to bring it nearer and nearer to the
complete form, even if the perfect understanding of the
' all in all ' be for ever unattainable. Nevertheless, the
clearer apprehension, so recently attained, of man's origin
and destiny, and of the enormous powers of which he
has actually the control, has not led to any very obvious
change in the attitude of responsible leaders of human
activity in the great civilized communities of the world.
They still attach little or no importance to the acquire-
ment of a knowledge of Nature : they remain fixed in the

in its migrations, to races not previously exposed either to the diseases
or the drugs, and a consequent destruction of the invaded race. The
survival of the fittest is, in these cases, a survival of the tolerant and
eventually of the immune.

30 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

old ruts of traditional ignorance, and obstinately turn
their faces towards the past, still believing that the
teachings and sayings of antiquity and the contemplation,
not to say the detailed enumeration, of the blunders and
crimes of its ancestors, can furnish mankind with the
knowledge necessary for its future progress. The compara-
tive failure of what may be called the speculative triumph
of the New Philosophy to produce immediate practical
consequences has even led some among those prejudiced
by custom and education in favour of the exclusive
employment of Man's thought and ingenuity in the
delineation and imaginative resurrection of the youthful
follies and excesses of his race, to declare that the
knowledge of Nature is a failure, the New Philosophy of
the Nature-searchers a fraud. Thus the well-known
French publicist M. Brunetiere has taken upon himself
to declare what he calls the Bankruptcy of Science.

12. THE REGNUM HOMINIS.

As a matter of fact the new knowledge of Nature —
the newly-ascertained capacity of Man for a control of
Nature so thorough as to be almost unlimited — has not
as yet had an opportunity for showing what it can do.
A lull after victory, a lethargic contentment, has to some
extent followed on the crowning triumphs of the great
Nature-searchers whose days were numbered with the
closing years of that nineteenth century which through
them marks an epoch. No power has called on Man to
arise and enter upon the possession of his kingdom —
the ' Regnum Hominis ' foreseen by Francis Bacon and
pictured by him to an admiring but incredulous age with
all the fervour and picturesque detail of which he was
capable. And yet at this moment the mechanical din>

NATURE'S INSURGENT SON 31

culties, the want of assurance and of exact knowledge,
which necessarily prevented Bacon's schemes from
taking practical shape, have been removed. The will to
possess and administer this vast territory alone is wanting.

13. MAN'S DESTINY.

Within the last few years an attempt to spur the will
of Englishmen in this direction has been made by some
who have represented that this way lie great fortunes,
national ascendancy, imperial domination. The effort
has not met with much success. On the other hand,
I speak for those who would urge the conscious and
deliberate assumption of his kingdom by Man — not as a
matter of markets and of increased opportunity for the
cosmopolitan dealers in finance — but as an absolute duty,
the fulfilment of Man's destiny,1 a necessity the incidence
of which can only be deferred and not avoided.

This, is indeed, the definite purpose of my discourse ;
to point out that civilized man has proceeded so far in his
interference with extra-human nature, has produced for
himself and the living organisms associated with him such
a special state of things by his rebellion against natural
selection and his defiance of Nature's pre-human dis-
positions, that he must either go on and acquire firmer
control of the conditions or perish miserably by the
vengeance certain to fall on the half-hearted meddler in
great affairs. We may indeed compare civilized man to
a successful rebel against Nature who by every step for-
ward renders himself liable to greater and greater penal-
ties, and so cannot afford to pause or fail in one single

1 ' Religion means the knowledge of our destiny and of the means of
fulfilling it.' — Life and Letters of Mandell Creighton sometime Bishop
of London, vol. ii. p. 195.

32 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

step. Or again we may think of him as the heir to a vast
and magnificent kingdom who has been finally educated
so as to fit him to take possession of his property, and is
at length left alone to do his best ; he has wilfully abro-
gated, in many important respects, the laws of his mother
Nature by which the kingdom was hitherto governed ; he
has gained some power and advantage by so doing, but is
threatened on every hand by dangers and disasters
hitherto restrained : no retreat is possible — his only
hope is to control, as he knows that he can, the sources
of these dangers and disasters. They already make him
wince : how long will he sit listening to the fairy-tales
of his boyhood and shrink from manhood's task ?

A brief consideration of well-ascertained facts is
sufficient to show that Man, whilst emancipating him-
self from the destructive methods of natural selection,
has accumulated a new series of dangers and difficul-
ties with which he must incessantly contend.

14. MAN AND DISEASE.

In the extra-human system of Nature there is no
disease and there is no conjunction of incompatible
forms of life, such as Man has brought about on the
surface of the globe. In extra-human Nature the
selection of the fittest necessarily eliminates those
diseased or liable to disease. Disease both of parasitic
and congenital origin occurs as a minor phenomenon.
The congenitally diseased are destroyed before they
can reproduce : the attacks of parasites great and small
either serve only to carry off the congenitally weak, and
thus strengthen the race, or become harmless by the
survival of those individuals which, owing to peculiar
qualities in their tissues, can tolerate such attacks with-

NATURE'S INSURGENT SON 33

out injury, resulting in the establishment of immune
races. It is a remarkable thing — which possibly may
be less generally true than our present knowledge seems
to suggest — that the adjustment of organisms to their
surroundings is so severely complete in Nature apart
from Man, that diseases are unknown as constant and
normal phenomena under those conditions. It is no
doubt difficult to investigate this matter, since the pre-
sence of Man as an observer itself implies human inter-
vention. But it seems to be a legitimate view that
every disease to which animals (and probably plants
also) are liable, excepting as a transient and very
exceptional occurrence, is due to Man's interference.
The diseases of cattle, sheep, pigs, and horses, are not
known except in domesticated herds and those wild
creatures to which Man's domesticated productions
have communicated them. The trypanosome lives in
the blood of wild game and of rats without producing
mischief. The hosts have become tolerant of the
parasite. It is only when man brings his unselected,
humanly-nurtured races of cattle and horses into con-
tact with the parasite, that it is found to have deadly
properties.1 The various cattle-diseases which in Africa
have done so much harm to native cattle, and have in

1 This has been established in the case of the Trypanosoma Brucei
a minute parasite living in the blood of big game in south-east Africa,
amongst which it is disseminated by a blood-sucking fly, the Glossina
morsitans or Tsetze fly. The parasite appears to do little or no harm
to the native big game, but causes a deadly disease both in the horses
and cattle introduced by Europeans and in the more anciently intro-
duced native cattle (of Indian origin). Similar cases are found where a
disease germ (such as that of measles) produces but a small degree of
sickness and mortality in a population long associated with it, but is
deadly to a human community to which it is a new-comer. Thus
Europeans have introduced measles with deadly results in the South
Sea Islands. A similar kind of difficulty, of which many might be

D

34 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

some regions exterminated big game, have per contra
been introduced by man through his importation of
diseased animals of his own breeding from Europe.
Most, if not all, animals in extra-human conditions, in-
cluding the minuter things such as insects, shell-fish,
and invisible aquatic organisms, have been brought
into a condition of 'adjustment' to their parasites as
well as to the other conditions in which they live : it
is this most delicate and efficient balance of Nature
which Man everywhere upsets. A solitary case of a
ravaging epidemic constantly recurring amongst animals
living in extra-human conditions, one of a strangely
interesting character, is the phosphorescent disease of
the sand-shrimps or sand-hoppers. This is due to a
microscopic parasite, a bacterium, which infests the
blood and is phosphorescent, so that the infected sand-
hopper has at night the brilliancy of a glow-worm.
The disease is deadly, and is common among the sand-
hoppers dwelling in the sandy flats of the north coast
of France, where it may readily be studied.1 It has

cited, is brought about by man's importations and exportations of useful
plants. He thus brought the Phylloxera to Europe, not realizing before
hand that this little parasitic bug, though harmless to the American
vine, which puts out new shoots on its roots when the insect injures the
old ones, is absolutely deadly to the European vine, which has not
acquired the simple but all-important mode of growth by which the
American vine is rendered safe. Thus, too, he took the coffee-plant to
Ceylon, and found his plantations suddenly devastated by a minute
mould, the Himileia vastatrix^ which had lived very innocently before
that in the Cingalese forests, but was ready to burst into rapacious and
destructive activity when the new unadjusted coffee-trees were imported
by man and presented in carefully crowded plantations to its unre-
strained infection.

1 The phosphorescent disease of the sand-hopper (Talitrus) is de-
scribed by Giard and Billet in a paper entitled * Observations sur la
maladie phosphorescente des Talitres et autres Crustaces,' in the
memoirs of the Societe de Biologic, Oct. 19, 1889. Billet subsequently

NATURE'S INSURGENT SON 35

not been recorded as occurring in this country. It is
not at all improbable that this disease is also in truth
one which only occurs in the trail of Man. It is quite
likely that the artificial conditions of sewage and gar-
bage set up by Man on the sea-coast are responsible for
the prevalence of this parasite, and the weakly recep-
tivity of the too numerous sand-hoppers.

It is probable enough that, from time to time, under
the influence of certain changes of climate and asso-
ciated fauna and flora — due to meteoric or geologic
movements— parasitic disease has for a time ravaged
this or that species newly exposed to it ; but the final
result is one of the alternatives, extinction or adjust-
ment, death or toleration. The disease does not estab-
lish itself as a scourge against which the diseased
organism incessantly contends. It either obliterates its
victim or settles down with it into relations of reciprocal
toleration.

Man does not admit this alternative either for him-
self or for the domesticated and cultivated organisms
which he protects. He ' treats ' disease, he staves off
'the adjustment by death,' and thus accumulates vast

gave a further account of this organism, and named it Bacillus Giardi
— after Professor Giard of Paris. (Bulletins scientifiques de la France
et de la Belgique, xxi. 1898, p. 144).

It appears that the parasite is transmitted from one individual to
another in coition. The specimens studied by Giard and Billet were
obtained at Wimereux near Boulogne. I found the disease very abund-
ant at Ouistreham near Caen in the summer of 1900. I have not
observed it nor heard of its occurrence on the English coast. Sea-
water commonly contains a free-living phosphorescent bacterium which
can be cultivated in flasks of liquid food so as to give rich growths which
glow like a lamp when the flask is agitated so as to expose the contents
to oxidation. This bacterium is not, however, the cause of the ' phos-
phorescence ' of the sea often seen on our coasts. That is due in most
cases to a much larger organism, as big iis a small pin's head, and
known as Noctiluca miliafis.

D 2

36 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

populations of unadjusted human beings, animals and
plants, which from time to time are ravaged by disease
— producing uncertainty and dismay in human society.
Within the past few years the knowledge of the causes
of disease has become so far advanced that it is a mat-
ter of practical certainty that, by the unstinted applica-
tion of known methods of investigation and consequent
controlling action, all epidemic disease could be
abolished within a period so short as fifty years. It is
merely a question of the employment of the means at
our command. Where there is one man of first-rate
intelligence employed in detecting the disease-producing
parasites, their special conditions of life and the way
to bring them to an end, there should be a thousand.
It should be as much the purpose of civilized govern-
ments to protect their citizens in this respect as it is
to provide defence against human aggression. Yet it
is the fact that this immensely important control of a
great and constant danger and injury to mankind is
left to the unorganized inquiries of a few enthusiasts.
So little is this matter understood or appreciated, that
those who are responsible for the welfare of States,
with the rarest exceptions, do not even know that
such protection is possible, and others again are so far
from an intelligent view as to its importance, that they
actually entertain the opinion that it would be a good
thing were there more disease in order to get rid of the
weakly surplus population !

In the spring of 1905 I was enabled to examine in
the Pasteur Institute in Paris, the minute spiral thread
(see Fig. 6) which has just been discovered and shown to
be the cause of the most terrible and widely spread of
human diseases, destroying the health and strength of
those whom it does not kill and damaging the lives of their

NATURE'S INSURGENT SON

37

children, so that it has been justly said that this malady
and the use of alcohol as a beverage are together
responsible for more than half the disease and early
death of the mature population of Europe. For more
than thirty years, a few workers, here and there, have
been searching for this parasite, and the means of sup-
pressing the awful curse of which it is the instrument.

b.

\

FIG. 6.

The minute vibratile organism discovered by Fritz Schaudinn in 1905
in the eruptive formations and other diseased growths of syphilis — and
called by him Spirochceta pallida (since altered to Spironema pallidum] : a,
common phase ; b, shortened and thickened form leading on to e the
Try panosoma- like form ; c, d, stages of division by fission ; /, elongated
multi-nuclear form; g, segments into which it breaks up; h, supposed
conjugation of male and female units (after Krystallovitch and Siedlevski).

This organism, though resembling the spirillar forms of Bacteria, is
probably not one of that group of vegetable parasites, but allied to the
minute animal parasites known as Trypanosomes (see pp. 145 and 181
and figures.) It is regarded as the ' germ ' or active cause of the terrible
disease known as Syphilis.

It would have been discovered many years ago had
greater value been set on the inquiries which lead to
such discoveries by those who direct the public ex-
penditure of civilized States. And now the complete
suppression of this dire enemy of humanity is as plain

38 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

and certain a piece of work to be at once accomplished
as is the building of an ironclad. But it will not be
done for many years because of the ignorance and
unbelief of those who alone can act for the community
in such matters. The discovery — the presentation to
the eye and to exploring manipulation — of that well-
nigh ultra-microscopic germ of death, seemed to me, as
I gazed at its delicate shape, a thing of greater signi-
ficance to mankind than the emendation of a Greek text
or the determination of the exact degree of turpitude of
a statesman of a bygone age.

The knowledge of the causation of disease by bac-
terial and protozoic parasites is a thing which has come
into existence, under our very eyes and hands, within
the last fifty years. The parasite, and much of its
nature and history, has been discovered in the case of
splenic fever, leprosy, phthisis, diphtheria, typhoid fever,
glanders, cholera, plague, lock-jaw, gangrene, septic
poisoning (of wounds), puerperal fever, malaria, sleeping
sickness, and some other diseases which are fatal to
man. In some cases the knowledge obtained has led
to a control of the attack or of the poisonous action of
the parasite. Antiseptic surgery, by defeating the
poisonous parasite, has saved not only thousands upon
thousands of lives, but has removed an incalculable
amount of pain. Control is slowly being obtained in
regard to several others among these deadly microbes
in various ways, most wonderful of which is the develop-
ment, under man's control, of serums containing anti-
toxins appropriate to each disease, which have to be
injected into the blood as the means of either cure or
protection. But why should we be content to wait
long years, even centuries, for this control, when we
can have it in a few years ? If more men and abler

NATURE'S INSURGENT SON 39

men were employed to study and experiment on this
matter, we should soon make an end of all infectious
disease. Is there any one, man or woman, who would
not wish to contribute to the removal from human life
of the suffering and uncertainty due to disease, the
anguish and misery caused by premature death ? Yet
nothing is done by those who determine the expendi-
ture of the revenues of great States towards dealing
adequately with this matter.1

1 As little is the question of the use and abuse of food and drink dealt
with, as yet, by civilized man. As in many other matters man has
carried into his later crowded, artificial, nature-controlling life habits
and tendencies derived from savage prehistoric days, so has he perpetu-
ated ways of feeding which are mere traditions from his early ' animal '
days, and have never been seriously called in question and put to proof.
The persistence under new conditions of either habit or structure which
belonged to old conditions may be attended with great danger and diffi-
culty to an organism which changes, as man does, with great rapidity
important features in its general surroundings and mode of life. This
is in effect MetschnikofPs doctrine of * desharmonies.' It is probable
that in very early days when a tribe of primitive men killed a mammoth,
they all rushed on to the dead monster and gorged as much of its flesh
as they could swallow (cooked or possibly uncooked). They had to
take in enough to last for another week or two — that is to say, until
another large animal should be trapped and slain. Accordingly he who
could eat most would be strongest and best able to seize a good share
when the next opportunity arrived, and it naturally became considered
an indication of strength, vigour, and future prosperity to be capable of
gorging large quantities of food. By means of the phrases ' enjoying a
good appetite,' or ' a good trencherman,' or other such approving terms,
civilized society still encourages the heavy feeder. The lower classes
always consider a ravenous appetite to be an indication of strength and
future prosperity in a child. Most healthy men, and even many women,
in Western Europe, attack their food and swallow it without sufficient
mastication, and as though they did not hope to get another chance
of feeding for a week or two to come. Medical men have never
ventured to investigate seriously whether civilized man is doing best
for his health in behaving like a savage about his food. It is their
business to attend to the patient with a disordered digestion, but not to
experiment upon the amount of food of various kinds which the modern
man should swallow in order to avoid indigestion and yet supply his

40 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

15. THE INCREASE OF HUMAN POPULATION.

Whilst there is a certainty of Man's power to remove
all disease from his life, a difficulty which he has already
created for himself will be thereby increased. That
difficulty is the increase of human population beyond the
capacity of the earth's surface to provide food and the
other necessities of life. By rebelling against Nature's
method, Man has made himself the only animal which
constantly increases in numbers. Whenever disease is
controlled his increase will be still more rapid than at

alimentary needs. No individual can possibly pay medical men to make
these observations. It is the business of the State to do so, because such
knowledge is not only needed by the private citizen, but is of enormous
importance in the management of armies and navies, in the victualling
of hospitals, asylums, and prisons. Thousands of tons of preserved
meat have been wasted in recent wars because the reckless and ignorant
persons who purchased the preserved meat to feed soldiers had never
taken the trouble to ascertain whether preserved meat can be eaten by
a body of men as a regular and chief article of diet. It appears that
certain methods of preserving meat render it innutritious and impossible
as a diet.

It is probable from recent experiment that we all, except those un-
fortunate few who do not get enough, eat about twice as much as we
require, and that the superfluous quantity swallowed not only is wasted,
but is actually a cause of serious illness and suffering. It surely is an
urgent matter that these questions about food should be thoroughly
investigated and settled. In the opinion of the most eminent physiolo-
gist of the United States (Professor Bowditch), we shall never establish
a rational and healthy mode of feeding ourselves until we give up the
barbarous but to some persons pleasant custom of converting the meal
into a social function ; we are thus tempted into excess. Only long
and extensive experiment can provide us with definite and conclusive
information on this matter, which is far more important than, at first
sight, it seems to be. And similarly with regard to the admittedly
serious question of alcohol — only very extensive and authoritative
experiment will suffice to show mankind whether it is a wise and healthy
thing to take it in small quantities, the exact limits of which must be
stated, or to reject it altogether.

NATURE'S INSURGENT SON 41

present. At the same time no attempt at present has
been made by the more advanced communities of civi-
lized men to prevent the multiplication of the weakly or
of those liable to congenital disease. Already something
like a panic on this subject has appeared in this country.
Inquiries have been conducted by public authorities.
But the only possible method of dealing with this
matter, and in the first place of estimating its importance
as immediate or remote, has not been applied. Man
can only deal with this difficulty created by his own
departure from Nature — to which he can never return
— by thoroughly investigating the laws of breeding and
heredity, and proceeding to apply a control to human
multiplication based upon certain and indisputable
knowledge.

It may be a century, or it may be more than
five centuries, before the matter would, if let alone,
force itself upon a desperate humanity, brutalized by
over-crowding, and the struggle for food. A return to
Nature's terrible selection of the fittest may, it is
conceivable, be in this way in store for us. But it is
more probable that humanity will submit, before that
condition occurs, to a restriction by the community in
respect of the right to multiply, with as good a grace as
it has given up the right to murder and to steal. In view
of this Man must, in entering on his kingdom, at once
proceed to perfect those studies as to the transmission
of qualities by heredity which have as yet been only
roughly carried out by breeders of animals and horti-
culturists.

There is absolutely no provision for this study in any
civilized community, and no conception among the people
or their leaders that it is a matter which concerns any
one but farmers.

42 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

16. AN UNTOUCHED SOURCE OF ENERGY.

The applications of steam and electricity have so far
astonished and gratified the rebel Man, that he is some-
times disposed to conclude that he has come to the end
of his power of relieving himself from the use of his
own muscles for anything but refined movements and
well-considered health-giving exercises. One of the
greatest of chemical discoverers at this time living,
M. Berthelot, has, however, recently pressed on our
attention the question of the possibility of tapping the
central heat of the earth and making use of it as a
perennial source of energy. Many competent physicists
have expressed the opinion that the mechanical diffi-
culties of such a boring, as would be necessary, are
insuperable. No one, however, would venture to pro-
phesy, in such a matter as this, that what is prevented
by insuperable obstacles to-day may not be within our
powers in the course of a few years.

17. SPECULATIONS AS TO THE MARTIANS.

Such audacious control of the resources of our planet
is suggested as a possibility, a legitimate hope and aim,
by recent observations and speculations as to our neigh-
bour, the planet Mars. I do not venture to express any
opinion as to the interpretation of the appearances
revealed by the telescope on the surface of the planet
Mars, and indeed would take the most sceptical attitude
until further information is obtained. But the influence
of these statements about Mars on the imagination and
hopes of Man seems to me to possess considerable
interest. The markings on the surface of the planet
Mars, which have been interpreted as a system of canals,

NATURE'S INSURGENT SON 43

have been known and discussed for many years (see Figs.
7 and 8). It has recently been observed that these canals
undergo a recurrent seasonal change of appearance con-
sistent with the hypothesis that they are periodically filled
with water, which is derived from the polar snow-caps of
the planet at the season of greatest polar heat. It is sug-
gested that Mars is inhabited by an intelligent population,
not necessarily closely similar to mankind, but, on the

FIG. 7.

Drawing of Mars in November with Long. 156° on the meridian, shew-
ing the ' Mare Sirenum ' (the shaded sickle-shaped area), connected with a
network of ' canals ' shewing ' spots ' or ' oases ' at the intersections of
the canals and a system of spherical triangles as the form of the mesh-
work. — From ' Mars,' by Perceval Lowell.

contrary unlike mankind in proportion as the conditions
of Mars are unlike those of the Earth, and that these
inhabitants have constructed by their own efforts the
enormous irrigation works upon which the fertility and
habitability of their planet, at the present time, depend.

44 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

These speculations lead M. Faguet of the French Academy
to further reflections. The Martians who have carried
out this vast manipulation of a planet must be not only far
in advance of the inhabitants of the Earth in intelligence
and mechanical power, as a result of the greater age of
their planet and the longer continuance there of the
evolution of an intelligent race, but such a vast work
and its maintenance would seem to imply a complete

FIG. 8.

Drawing of Mars as seen on November i8th, 1894 (Long. 325° on the
meridian) by Mr. Perceval Lowell at the Flagstaff Observatory, Arizona,
U.S.A., shewing 'twin* or 'double' canals, connected northwards with
the ' Mare Icarium.' The two figures here reproduced only give a small
portion of the system of canals, oases and seas of the planet Mars, mapped
by Mr. Lowell.

unanimity among the Martians, a world-wide peace and
common government. Since we can imagine such a
result of the prolonged play of forces in Mars, similar to
those at work in our own Earth, and even obtain some

NATURE'S INSURGENT SON 45

slight confirmation of the supposition, may we not
indulge in the surmise that some such future is in store
for Man, that he may be able hereafter to deal with great
planetary factors to his own advantage, and not only
draw heat from the bowels of the earth for such purposes
as are at present within his scope, but even so as to
regulate, at some distant day, the climates of the earth's
surface, and the winds and the rain which seem now for
ever beyond his control ?

18. THE INVESTIGATION OF THE HUMAN MIND.

In such a desultory survey as that on which I have
ventured, of Man's kingdom and its dangers, it occurs to
me to mention another area upon which it seems urgent
that the activities of nature-searchers should be imme-
diately turned with increased power and number. The
experimental study of his body and of that of animals
has been carried far and with valuable results by inquiring
Man. But a singularly small amount of attention has
as yet been given to the investigation of Man's mind as a
natural phenomenon and one which can be better under-
stood to the immense advantage of the race.

The mind of Man — it matters not for my immediate
argument whether it be regarded as having arisen
normally or abnormally from the mind of animals — is
obviously the one and all-powerful instrument with which
he has contended, and is destined hereafter to contend,
against extra-human Nature. It is no less important for
him to know the quality, the capacity, the mode of
operation of this instrument, its beginnings and its
limitations, than it is for him to know the minutest
details of the workings of Nature. Just as much in the

46 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

one case as in the other, it is impossible for him to trust
to the imperfect analysis made by ancient races of men
and the traditions and fancies handed down in old
writings — produced by generations who had not arrived
at the method of investigation which we now can apply.
Experiment upon the mental processes of animals and of
Man is greatly needed. Only here and there has anything
been done in this direction. Most promising results have
been obtained by such observations as those on hypnotism
and on various diseased and abnormal states of the brain.
But the subject is so little explored that wild and un-
tested assertions as to the powers of the mind are current
and have given rise to strange beliefs, accepted by many
seriously-intentioned men and women. We boldly operate
upon the minds of children in our systems of education
without really knowing what we are doing. We blindly
assume that the owners of certain minds, traditionally
trained in amusing elegancies, are fit to govern their
fellow-men and administer vast provinces ; we assume
that the discovery and comprehension of Nature's pro-
cesses must be the work of very few and peculiar minds ;
that if we take care of the body the mind will take care
of itself. We know really nothing of the heredity of
mental qualities, nor how to estimate their presence or
absence in the young so as to develop the mind to
greatest advantage. We know the pain and the penalty
of muscular fatigue, but we play with the brains of young
and old as though they were indestructible machinery.
What is called experimental psychology is only in its
infancy, but it is of urgent necessity that it should be
systematically pursued by the application of public
funds in order that Man may know how to make the
best use of his only weapon in his struggle to control
Nature.

NATURE'S INSURGENT SON 47

ig. MAN'S DELAY : ITS CAUSE AND REMEDY.

Even the slight and rapid review just given of Man's
position, face to face with Nature, enables us to see what
a tremendous step he has taken, what desperate conditions
he has created by the wonderful exercise of his will; how
much he has done and can do to control the order of
Nature, and how urgent it is, beyond all that words can
say, for him to apply his whole strength and capacity to
gaining further control, so that he may accomplish his
destiny and escape from misery.

It is obvious enough that Man is, at present, doing
very little in this direction ; so little that one seeks for
an explanation of his apathy, his seeming paralysis.

The explanation is that the masses of the people, in
civilized as well as uncivilized countries, are not yet
aware of the situation. When knowledge on this matter
reaches, as it inevitably will in time, to the general
population, it is certain that the democracy will demand
that those who expend the resources of the community,
and as government officials undertake the organization of
the national defence and other great public services for
the common good, shall put into practice the power of
Nature-control which has been gained by mankind, and
shall exert every sinew to obtain more. To effect this,
the democracy will demand that those who carry on
public affairs shall not be persons solely acquainted with
the elegant fancies and stories of past ages, but shall be
trained in the acquisition of natural knowledge and
keenly active in the skilful application of Nature-control
to the development of the well-being of the community.

It would not be necessary to wait for this pressure
from below were the well-to-do class — which in most

48 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

modern States exercises so large an influence both in
the actual administration of Governments and by
example — so situated as to be in any way aware of the
responsibilities which rest upon it. Traditional educa-
tion has, owing to causes which are not far to seek,
deprived "the well-to-do class of a knowledge of, and
interest in, Man's relation to Nature, and of his power
to control natural processes. During the whole period
of the growth of man's knowledge of Nature — that is to
say, ever since the days of Bruno — the education of
the well-to-do has been directed to the acquirement of
entertaining information and elegant accomplishments,
whilst ' useful knowledge ' has been despised and ob-
tained, when considered necessary, from lower-class
' workmen ' at workmen's wages. It is of course not to
be overlooked that there have been notable exceptions
to this, but they have been exceptions. Even at the
present day, in some civilized States, a body of clerks,
without any pretence to an education in the knowledge
of Nature, headed by gentlemen of title, equally ignorant,
are entrusted with, and handsomely paid and rewarded
for, the superintendence of the armies, the navies, the
agriculture, the public works, the fisheries, and even the
public education of the State. When compelled to
seek the assistance of those who have been trained in
the knowledge of Nature (for even in these States there
are a few such eccentric persons to be found), the
officials demand that such assistance shall be freely
given to them without pay, or else offer to buy the
knowledge required at the rate paid to a copying clerk.
This state of things is not one for which it is possible
to blame those who, in blissful ignorance, contentedly
perform what they consider to be their duty to their
country. There are, however, in many States, institu-

NATURE'S INSURGENT SON 49

tions, of vast influence in the education of the whole
community, known as Universities. In many countries
they as well as the schools are directly controlled by
the State. In England, however, we are happy in
having free Universities, the older of which, though in
some important respects tied down by law, yet have
the power to determine almost absolutely, not only what
shall be studied within their own walls, but what shall
be studied in all the schools of the country frequented
by the children of the well-to-do.

It is the pride of our ancient Universities that they
are largely, if not exclusively, frequented by young men
of the class who are going to take an active part in
the public affairs of the country— either as politicians
and statesmen, as governors of remote colonies, or as
leaders of the great professions of the Church, the
Law, and Medicine. It would seem, then, that if these
Universities attached a greater, even a predominant,
importance to the studies which lead to the knowledge
and control of Nature, the schools would follow their
example, and that the governing class of the country
would become acquainted with the urgent need for
more knowledge of the kind, and for the immediate
application in public affairs of that knowledge which
exists.

It would seem that in Great Britain, at any rate, it
would not be necessary, were the Universities alive to
the situation, to await the pressure of democracy, but
that a better and more rapid mode of development
would obtain ; the influential and trusted leaders of the
community would set the example in seeking and using
for the good of the State the new knowledge of Nature.
The world has seen with admiration and astonishment
the entire people of Japan follow the example of its

E

50 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

governing class in the almost sudden adoption of the
knowledge and control of Nature as the purpose of
national education and the guide of State administration.
It is possible that in a less rapid and startling manner
our old Universities may, at no distant date, influence
the intellectual life of the more fortunate of our fellow
citizens, and consequently of the entire community.
The weariness which is so largely expressed at the
present day in regard to human effort — whether it be
in the field of politics, of literature, or of other art, or
in relation to the improvement of social organization
and the individual life — is possibly due to the fact that
we have exhausted the old sources of inspiration, and
have not yet learnt to believe in the new. The ' return
to Nature,' which is sometimes vaguely put forward as
a cure for the all-pervading * taedium ' of this age, is
perhaps an imperfect expression of the truth that it
is time for civilized man not to return to the ' state of
Nature,' but to abandon his retrospective attitude and
to take up whole-heartedly the Kingdom of Nature
which it is his destiny to rule. New hope, new life
will, when he does this, be infused into every line of
human activity : Art will acquire a new impulse, and
politics become real and interesting. To a community
which believes in the destiny of Man as the controller
of Nature, and has consciously entered upon its fulfil-
ment, there can be none of the weariness and even
despair which comes from an exclusive worship of the
past. There can only be encouragement in every victory
gained, hope and the realization of hope. Even in the
face of the overwhelming opposition and incredulity
which now unhappily have the upper hand, the believer
in the predestined triumph of Man over Nature can
exert himself to place a contribution, however small, in

NATURE'S INSURGENT SON 51

the great edifice of Nature-knowledge, happy in the

conviction that his life has been worth living, has
counted to the good in the imperishable result.

20. THE INFLUENCE OF OXFORD.

If I venture now to consider more specifically the
influence exercised by the University of Oxford upon
the welfare of the State and of the human community
in general, in view of the conclusions which have been
set forth in what has preceded, I beg to say that I do so
with the greatest respect to the opinions of others who
differ from me. When I say this I am not using an
empty .formula. I mean that I believe that there must
be many University men who are fair-minded and dis-
interested, and have given special attention to the
matter of which I wish to speak, and" who are yet very
far from agreeing with me. I ask them to consider
what I have said, and what I have further to say, in
the same spirit as that in which I approach them.

It seems to me — and when I speak of myself I would
point out that I am presenting the opinions of a large
number of educated men, and that it will be better for
me to avoid an egotistical attitude — it seems to us
(I prefer to say) that the University of Oxford by its
present action in regard to the choice and direction
of subjects of study is exercising an injurious influence
upon the education of the country, and especially upon
the education of those who will hereafter occupy
positions of influence, and will largely determine both
the action of the State and the education and opinions
of those who will in turn succeed them. The question
has been recently raised as to whether the acquirement
of a certain elementary knowledge of the Greek language

E 2

52 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

should be required of all those who desire to pursue
their studies in this University, and accordingly
whether the teaching of the elements of this language
should form a prominent feature in the great schools
of this country. It seems to us that this is only part
of a much larger question ; namely, whether it is desirable
to continue to make the study of two dead languages —
and of the story of the deeds of great men in the past—
the main if not the exclusive matter to which the minds
of the youth of the well-to-do class are directed by our
schools and universities. We have come to the con-
clusion that this form of education is a mistaken and
injurious one. We desire to make the chief subject
of education both in school and in college a knowledge
of Nature as set forth in the sciences which are spoken
of as physics, chemistry, geology, and biology. We
think that all education l should consist in the first
place of this kind of knowledge, on account of its com-
manding importance both to the individual and to the
community. We think that every man of even a
moderate amount of education should have acquired a
sufficient knowledge of these subjects to enable him at
any rate to appreciate their value, and to take an interest
in their progress and application to human life. And
we think further that the ablest youths of the country
should be encouraged to proceed to the extreme limit

1 It is, perhaps, needful to point out that what is aimed at is that the
education of all the youth of the country, both of pass-men and of
class-men, of girls as well as of boys, of the rich as well as of the poor,
should be primarily directed to imparting an acquaintance with what
we already possess in respect of knowledge of Nature, and the training
of the pupil so as to enable him or her (a) to make use of that know-
ledge, and (b] to take part in gaining new knowledge of Nature, at this
moment needed but non-existent. This does not involve the complete
exclusion of other subjects of instruction, to which about one-third of
the time and effort of school and college life might be devoted.

NATURE'S INSURGENT SON 53

of present knowledge in one or other branch of this
knowledge of Nature so as to become makers of new
knowledge, and the possible discoverers of enduring im-
provements in man's control of Nature. No one should
be educated so as to be ignorant of the importance of
these things ; and it should not be possible for the
greatest talent and mental power to be diverted to other
fields of activity through the fact that the necessary
education and opportunity in the pursuit of the know-
ledge of Nature are withheld. The strongest induce-
ments in the way of reward and consideration ought,
we believe, to be placed before a young man in the
direction of Nature-knowledge rather than in the direc-
tion of other and far less important subjects of study.

In fact, we should wish to see the classical and
historical scheme of education entirely abandoned, and
its place taken by a scheme of education in the know-
ledge of Nature.

At the same time let me hasten to say that few, if
any of us — and certainly not he who writes these lines —
would wish to remove the acquirement of the use of
languages, the training in the knowledge and perception
of beauty in literary art, and the feeding of the mind
with the great stories of the past, from a high and
necessary position in every grade of education.

It is a sad and apparently inevitable accompaniment
of all discussion of this matter that those who advocate
a great and leading position for the knowledge of
Nature in education are accused of desiring to abolish
all study of literature, history, and philosophy. This
is, in reality, so far from being the case that we should
most of us wish to see a serviceable knowledge of foreign
languages, and a real acquaintance with the beauties
of English and other literature, substituted for the present

54 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

unsuccessful efforts to teach effectively either the language
or literature of the Greeks and Romans.

It should not be for one moment supposed that those
who attach the vast importance which we do to the
knowledge of Nature imagine that Man's spirit can be
satisfied by exclusive occupation with that knowledge.
We know, as well as any, that Man does not live by
bread alone. Though the study of Nature is fitted to
develop great mental qualities — perseverance, honesty,
judgement, and initiative — we do not suppose that it
completes Man's mental equipment. Though the know-
ledge of Nature calls upon, excites, and gratifies the
imagination to a degree and in a way which is peculiar
. to itself, we do not suppose that it furnishes the oppor-
tunity for all forms of mental activity. The great joys of
Art, the delights and entertainment to be derived from
the romance and history of human character, are not
parts of it. They must never be neglected. But are we
not justified in asserting that, for some two hundred
years or more, these ' entertainments ' have been pursued
in the name of the highest education and study to the
exclusion of the far weightier and more necessary know-
ledge of Nature ? ' This should ye have done, and yet
not left the other undone,' may justly be said to those
who have conducted the education of our higher schools
and universities along the pleasant lines of literature and
history, to the neglect of the urgently-needed * improve-
ment of Natural Knowledge.' Nero was probably a
musician of taste and training, and it was artistic and
high-class music which he played while Rome was
burning : so too the studies of the past carried on at
Oxford have been charming and full of beauty, whilst
England has lain, and lies, in mortal peril for lack of
knowledge of Nature.

NATURE'S INSURGENT SON 55

It seems to be beyond dispute that the study, firstly
of Latin, and much more recently of Greek, were
followed in our Universities and in grammar schools, not
as educational exercises in the use of language, but as
keys to unlock the store-rooms — the books — in which
the knowledge of the ancients was contained. So long
as these keys were needed, it was reasonable enough that
every well-educated man should spend such time as was
necessary in providing himself with the key. But now
that the store-rooms are empty — now that their contents
have been appropriated and scattered far and wide — in
all languages of civilization, it seems to be merely an
unreasoning continuation of superannuated custom to go
on with the provision of these keys. Such, however,
is the force of habit that it continues : new and ingenious
reasons for the practice are put forward, whilst its
original object is entirely forgotten.

In the first place, it has come to be regarded as a
mark of good breeding, and thus an end in itself, for
a man to have some first-hand acquaintance with Latin
and Greek authors, even when he knows no other
literature. It is a fashion, like the wearing of a court
dress. This cannot be held to justify the employment
of most of the time and energy of youth in its
acquirement.

A second reason which is now put forward for the
practice is that the effort and labour expended on the
provision of these keys — even though it is admitted
that they are useless — are a wonderful and incompar-
ably fine exercise of the mind, fitting it for all sorts
of work. A theory of education has been enunciated
which fits in with this defence of the continued attempt
to compel young men to acquire a knowledge, however
imperfect, of the Latin and Greek languages. It is

56 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

held that what is called ' training the mind ' is the
chief, if not the only proper, aim of education ; and
it is declared that the continuation of the study of
those once useful, but now useless, keys — Latin and
Greek — is an all-sufficient training. If this theory were in
accordance with the facts, the conclusion in favour of
giving a very high place to the study so recommended
would be inevitable. But the facts do not support
this theory. Clever youths are taken and pressed
into the study of Greek and Latin, and we are asked
to conclude that their cleverness is due to these studies.
On the other hand, we maintain that though the study
of grammar may be, when properly carried out, a
valuable exercise, yet that it is easily converted into
a worthless one, and can never in any case take the
place of various other forms of mental training, such
as the observation of natural objects, the following out
of experimental demonstration of the qualities and
relations of natural bodies, and the devising and execu-
tion of experiment as the test of hypothesis. Apart
from ' training ' there is the need for providing the
mind with information as well as method. The know-
ledge of Nature is eagerly assimilated by young people,
and no training in mental gymnastics can be a sub-
stitute for it or an excuse for depriving the young
of what is of inestimable value and instinctively
desired.

The prominence which is assigned to a familiarity
with the details of history, more especially of what
may be called biographical history, in the educational
system favoured by Oxford, seems to depend on the
same causes as those which have led to the maintenance
of the study of Greek and Latin. To read history is
a pleasant occupation which has become a habit

UNIVERSITY

OF

NATURE'S INSURGENT SON 57

and tradition. At one time men believed that history
repeats itself, and it was thought to be a proper and
useful training for one who would take part in public
affairs to store his mind with precedents and picturesque
narratives of prominent statesmen and rulers in far-off
days and distant lands. As a matter of fact it cannot
be shown that any statesman, or even the humblest
politician, has ever been guided to useful action by
such knowledge. History does not repeat itself, and
the man who thinks that it does will be led by his
fragmentary knowledge of stories of the past into serious
blunders. To the fashionable journalist such biographical
history furnishes the seasoning for his essays on political
questions of the day. But this does not seem to be
a sufficient reason for assigning so prominent a place
in University studies to this kind of history as is at
present the case. The reason, perhaps, of the favour
which it receives, is that it is one of the few subjects
which a man of purely classical education can pursue
without commencing his education in elementary
matters afresh.

It would be a serious mistake x to suppose that those
who would give a complete supremacy to the study of
Nature, in our educational system, do not value and
enjoy biographical history for what it is worth as an
entertainment ; or further, that they do not set great
value upon the scientific study of the history of the
struggles of the races and nations of mankind, as a
portion of the knowledge of the evolution of Man,
capable of giving conclusions of great value when it
has been further and more thoroughly treated as a

1 I desire especially to draw the attention of those who have mis-
understood and misrepresented my estimate of the importance of the
study of History, to this paragraph. — E.R.L.

58 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

department of Anthropology. What seems to us un-
desirable is, that mere stories and bald records of
certain peoples should be put forward as matter with
which the minds of children and young men are to be
occupied, to the exclusion of the all-important matters
comprised in the knowledge of Nature.

There are, it is well known, not a few who regard
the present institution of Latin and Greek and so-called
History, in the pre-eminent place which they occupy
in Oxford and the great schools of the country, as
something of so ancient and fundamental a character
that to question the wisdom of that institution seems
an odious proceeding, partaking of the nature of
blasphemy. This state of mind takes its origin in a
common error, due to the fact that a straightforward
account of the studies pursued in the University during
the last five hundred years has never been written.
Our present curriculum is a mere mushroom growth
of the last century, and has no claim whatever to
veneration. Greek was studied by but a dozen or two
specialists in Oxford two hundred and fifty years ago.
In those days, in proportion to what had been ascer-
tained in that subject and could be taught, there was
a great and general interest in the University in the
knowledge of Nature, such as we should gladly see
revived at the present day. As a matter of fact, it is
only within the last hundred years that the dogma of
compulsory Greek, and the value of what is now called
a classical education, has been promulgated. These
things are not historically of ancient date ; they are
not essentials of Oxford. We are therefore well within
our right in questioning the wisdom of their continuance
in so favoured a position, and we are warranted in
expressing the hope that those who can change the

NATURE'S INSURGENT SON 59

policy of the University and Colleges in this matter
will, at no distant day, do so.

It is sometimes urged that Oxford should contentedly
resign herself to the overwhelming predominance given
to the study of ancient elegance and historic wisdom
within her walls. It is said that she may well be
reserved for these delightful pursuits, whilst newer
institutions should do the hard work of aiding man in
his conquest of Nature. At first sight such a proposal
has a tempting character : we are charmed with the
suggestion that our beautiful Oxford should be enclosed
by a ring fence and cut off for ever from the contamina-
tion of the world. But a few moments' reflection must
convince most of us that such a treatment of Oxford
is an insult to her and an impossibility. Oxford is not
dead. Only a few decades have passed — a mere fraction
of her lifetime — since she was free from the oppression
of grammar-school studies, and sent forth Robert Boyle
and Christopher Wren to establish the New Philosophy
of the Invisible College in London. She seems, to some
of us, to have been used not quite wisely, perhaps
not quite fairly, in the brief period which has elapsed
since that time. Why should she not shake herself free
again, and give, hereafter, most, if not the whole, of her
wealth and strength to the urgent work which is actually
pursued in every other University of the world as a chief
aim and duty ?

The fact that Oxford attracts the youth of the
country to her, and so determines the education offered
in the great schools, is a sufficient answer to those who
wish to perpetuate the present employment of her
resources in the subvention and encouragement of
comparatively unimportant, though fascinating (even too
fascinating), studies, to the neglect of the pressing

60 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

necessary knowledge of Nature. Those who enjoy great
influence in the affairs of the University tell us with
pride that Oxford not only determines what our best
schools shall teach, but has, as a main pre-occupation,
the education of statesmen, pro-consuls, leaders of the
learned professions, and members of parliament !
Undoubtedly this claim is well-founded, and its truth
is the reason why we cannot be content with the
maintenance by the University of the compulsory study
of Greek and Latin, and the neglect to make the study
of Nature an integral and predominant part of every
man's education.

To return to my original contention — the knowledge
and control of Nature is Man's destiny and his greatest
need. To enable future leaders of the community to
comprehend this, to perceive what the knowledge and
control of Nature are, and what are the steps by which
they are gained and increased, is the duty of a great
University. To neglect this is to retard the approach
of well-being and happiness, and to injure humanity.

I beg, finally, for toleration from those who do not
share my opinions. I am well aware that they are open
to the objection that they partake more of the nature of
dreams of the future than of practical proposals.1 That,

1 The practical steps which would correspond to the views enunciated
in this discourse are two. First, the formation of an educational
association to establish one or more schools and colleges in which
nature-knowledge and training in nature-searching should be the chief
masters to which attention would be given, whilst reasonable methods
would also be employed for implanting in the minds of the students a
love and understanding of literature and other forms or art. Those
who desired such an education for their children would support these
schools and colleges, just as in the days of Anglican exclusiveness the
Nonconformists and Roman Catholics supported independent educa-
tional institutions. The second practical step would be the formation
of a political union which would make due respect to efficiency, that is

NATURE'S INSURGENT SON 61

perhaps, may be accepted as my excuse for indulging in
them. There are, and always have been, dreamers in
Oxford, and beautiful dreams they have dreamed — some
of the past, and some of the future. The most fascinat-
ing dreams are not, unfortunately, always realized ; but
it is sometimes worth while to tell one's dream, for that
may bring it a step nearer to ' coming true.'

to say, to a knowledge of Nature, a test question in all political contests.
No candidate for Parliament would receive the votes of the union unless
he were either himself educated in a knowledge of Nature or promised
his support exclusively to ministers who would insist on the utilization
of nature-knowledge in the administration of the great departments of
State, and would take active measures of a financial character to
develop with far greater rapidity and certainly than is at present the
case, that inquiry into and control of Nature which is the indispensable
factor in human welfare and progress. Such a programme will, I hope,
at no distant date obtain the support of a sufficient number of parlia-
mentary voters to raise political questions of a more genuine and
interesting character than those which many find so tedious at the
present moment.

62 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

APPENDIX.

/ add here a brief statement published by me in the TIMES, May ijth,
1903, which touches on the question of the origin of life, and
certain theories of creation.

" It seems to me that, were the discussion excited by
Lord Kelvin's statements to the Christian Association at
University College allowed to close in its present phase, the
public would be misled and injustice done both to Lord Kelvin
and his critics. I therefore beg you to allow me to point out
what appear to me to be the significant features of the matter
under discussion.

" Lord Kelvin, whose eminence as a physicist gives a special
interest to his opinion upon any subject, made at University
College, or in his subsequent letter to you, the following state-
ments : —

" i. That ' fortuitous concourse of atoms ' is not an inappro-
priate description of the formation of a crystal.

" 2. That 'fortuitous concourse of atoms ' is utterly absurd
in respect to the coming into existence, or the growth, or the
continuation of the molecular combinations presented in the
bodies of living things.

*' 3. That, though inorganic phenomena do not do so, yet the
phenomena of such living things as a sprig of moss, a microbe,
a living animal — looked at and considered as matters of scien-
tific investigation — compel us to conclude that there is scientific
reason for believing in the existence of a creative and directive
power.

" 4. That modern biologists are coming once more to a firm
acceptance of something, and that is — a vital principle.

" In your article on the discussion which has followed these
statements you declare that this (the opinions I have quoted
above) is 'a momentous conclusion,' and that it is a vital
point in the relation of science to religion.

NATURE'S INSURGENT SON 63

" I do not agree with that view of the matter, although I find
Lord Kelvin's statements full of interest. So far as I have
been able to ascertain, after many years in which these matters
have engaged my attention, there is no relation, in the sense of
a connection or influence, between science and religion. There
is, it is true, often an antagonistic relation between exponents
of science and exponents of religion when the latter illegiti-
mately misrepresent or deny the conclusions of scientific re-
search or try to prevent its being carried on, or, again, when
the former presume, by magnifying the extremely limited con-
clusions of science, to deal in a destructive spirit with the
very existence of those beliefs and hopes which are called
1 religion.' Setting aside such excusable and purely personal
collisions between rival claimants for authority and power, it
appears to me that science proceeds on its path without any
contact with religion, and that religion has not, in its essential
qualities, anything to hope for, or to fear from, science.

11 The whole order of nature, including living and lifeless
matter — from man to gas — is a network of mechanism the
main features and many details of which have been made
more or less obvious to the wondering intelligence of mankind
by the labour and ingenuity of scientific investigators. But
no sane man has ever pretended, since science became a defi-
nite body of doctrine, that we know or ever can hope to
know or conceive of the possibility of knowing, whence this
mechanism has come, why it is there, whither it is going, and
what there may or may not be beyond and beside it which our
senses are incapable of appreciating. These things are not
' explained ' by science, and never can be.

" Lord Kelvin speaks of a ' fortuitous concourse of atoms,'
but I must confess that I am quite unable to apprehend what
he means by that phrase in the connection in which he uses it.
It seems to me impossible that by 'fortuitous' he can mean
something which is not determined by natural cause and there-
fore is not part of the order of nature. When an ordinary man
speaks of a concourse having arisen ' by chance ' or ' fortuit-
ously,' he means merely that the determining conditions which
have led by natural causation to its occurrence were not known
to him beforehand ; he does not mean to assert that it has

64 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

arisen without the operation of such determining conditions ;
and I am quite unable to understand how it can be maintained
that ' the concourse of atoms ' forming a crystal, or even a
lump of mud, is in any philosophic sense more correctly de-
scribed as ' fortuitous ' than is the concourse of atoms which
has given rise to a sprig of moss or an animal. It would be a
matter of real interest to many of your readers if Lord Kelvin
would explain more precisely what he means by the distinction
which he has, somewhat dogmatically, laid down between the
formation of a crystal as * fortuitous ' and the formation of an
organism as due to 'creative and directive purpose.'

" I am not misrepresenting what Lord Kelvin has said on this
subject when I say that he seems to have formed the concep-
tion of a creator who, first of all, without care or foresight,
has produced what we call 'matter,' with its necessary pro-
perties, and allowed it to aggregate and crystallise as a painter
might allow his pigments to run and intermingle on his palette ;
and then, as a second effort, has brought some of these
elements together with ' creative and directive purpose,' mix-
ing them, as it were, with « a vital principle ' so as to form
living things, just as the painter might pick out certain colours
from his confused palette and paint a picture.

" This conception of the intermittent action of creative power
and purpose does not, I confess, commend itself to me. That,
however, is not so surprising as that it should be thought that
this curious conception of the action of creative power is of
value to religion. Whether the intermittent theory is a true
or an erroneous conception seems to me to have nothing to do
with ' religion ' in the large sense of that word so often mis-
used. It seems to me to be a kind of mythology, and I should
have thought could be of no special assistance to teachers of
Christianity. Such theories of divided creative operations are
traceable historically to polytheism.

" Lastly, with reference to Lord Kelvin's statement that
' modern biologists are coming once more to a firm acceptance
of something — and that is " a vital principle." I will not ven-
ture to doubt that Lord Kelvin has such persons among his
acquaintance. On the other hand, I feel some confidence in
stating that a more extensive acquaintance with modern biolo-

NATURE'S INSURGENT SON 65

gists would have led Lord Kelvin to perceive that those whom
he cites are but a trifling percentage of the whole. I do not
myself know of any one of admitted leadership among modern
biologists who is showing signs of ' coming to a belief in the
existence of a vital principle.'

" Biologists were, not many years ago, so terribly hampered
by these hypothetical entities — 'vitality,' 'vital spirits,' 'anima
animans,' 'archetypes,' 'vis medicatrix,' 'providential arti-
fice,' and others which I cannot now enumerate — that they are
very shy of setting any of them up again. Physicists, on the
other hand, seem to have got on very well with their proble-
matic entities, their ' atoms ! and ' ether,' and ' the sorting
demon of Maxwell.' Hence, perhaps, Lord Kelvin offers to
us, with a light heart, the hypothesis of a ' a vital principle ' to
smooth over some of our admitted difficulties. On the other
hand, we biologists, knowing the paralysing influence of such
hypotheses in the past, are as unwilling to have anything to do
with ' a vital principle,' even though Lord Kelvin erroneously
thinks we are coming to it, as we are to accept other strange
' entities ' pressed upon us by other physicists of a modern
and singularly adventurous type. Modern biologists (I am
glad to be able to affirm) do not accept the hypothesis of * tele-
pathy ' advocated by Sir Oliver Lodge, nor that of the intru-
sions of disembodied spirits pressed upon them by others of
the same school.

" We biologists take no stock in these mysterious entities.
We think it a more helpful method to be patient and to seek
by observation of, and experiment with, the phenomena of
growth and development to trace the evolution of life and of
living things without the facile and sterile hypothesis of 'a
vital principle.' Similarly, we seek by the study of cerebral
•disease to trace the genesis of the phenomena which are sup-
posed by some physicists who have strayed into biological
fields to justify them in announcing the 'discovery' of 'tele-
pathy' and a belief in ghosts."

66

CHAPTER II

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE, 1881-2906

I PROPOSE to give in the following pages an outline
of the advance of science in the past twenty-five
years. It is necessary to distinguish two main kinds
of advancement, both of which are important. Francis
Bacon gave the title * Advancement of Learning ' to
that book in which he explained not merely the
methods by which the increase of knowledge was
possible, but advocated the promotion of knowledge
to a new and influential position in the organization of
human society. His purpose, says Dean Church, was
' to make knowledge really and intelligently the interest,
not of the school or the study or the laboratory only,
but of society at large.' So that in surveying the
advancement of science in the past quarter of a century
we should ask not only what are the new facts
discovered, the new ideas and conceptions which have
come into activity, but what progress has science made
in becoming really and intelligently the interest of
society at large. Is there evidence that there is an
increase in the influence of science on the lives of our
fellow-citizens and in the great affairs of the State ? Is
there an increased provision for securing the progress
of scientific investigation in proportion to the urgency
of its need or an increased disposition to secure the
employment of really competent men trained in scientific
investigation for the public service ?

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 67

i. THE INCREASE OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE
SEVERAL BRANCHES OF SCIENCE.

The boundaries of my own understanding and the
practical consideration of what is appropriate to a
brief essay must limit my attempt to give to the general
reader some presentation of what has been going on
in the workshops of science in this last quarter of a
century. My point of view is essentially that of the
naturalist, and in my endeavour to speak of some of
the new things and new properties of things discovered
in recent years I find it is impossible to give any
systematic or detailed account of what has been done
in each division of science. All that I shall attempt is
to mention some of the discoveries which have aroused
my own interest and admiration. I feel, indeed, that
it is necessary to ask forbearance for my presumption
in daring to treat of so many subjects in which I cannot
claim to speak as an authority, but only as a younger
brother full of fraternal pride and sympathy in the
glorious achievements of the great experimentalists and
discoverers of our day.

As one might expect, the progress of the Knowledge
of Nature (for it is to that rather than to the historical,
moral and mental sciences that English-speaking people
refer when they use the word ' science ') has consisted,
in the last twenty-five years, in the amplification and
fuller verification of principles and theories already
accepted, and in the discovery of hitherto unknown
things which either have fallen into place in the existing
scheme of each science or have necessitated new views,
some not very disturbing to existing general conceptions,
others of a more startling and, at first sight, disconcerting
character. Nevertheless I think I am justified in saying

F 2

68 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

that, exciting and of entrancing interest as have been
some of the discoveries of the past few years, there has
been nothing to lead us to conclude that we have been
on the wrong path — nothing which is really revolu-
tionary ; that is to say, nothing which cannot be
accepted by an intelligible modification of previous
conceptions. There is, in fact, continuity and healthy
evolution in the realm of science. Whilst some
onlookers have declared to the public that science is
at an end, its possibilities exhausted, and but little of
the hopes it raised realised, others have asserted on the
contrary, that the new discoveries — such as those relating
to the X-rays and to radium — are so inconsistent with
previous knowledge as to shake the foundations of
science, and to justify a belief in any and every absurdity
of an unrestrained fancy. These two reciprocally de-
structive accusations are due to a class of persons who
must be described as the enemies of science. Whether
their attitude is due to ignorance or traditions of self-
interest, such persons exist. It is one of the objects of
our scientific associations and societies to combat those
assertions and to demonstrate, by the discoveries an-
nounced at their meetings and the consequent orderly
building up of the great fabric of 'natural knowledge,'
that Science has not come to the end of her work —
has, indeed, only as yet given mankind a foretaste of
what she has in store for it — that her methods and
her accomplished results are sound and trustworthy,
serving with perfect adaptability for the increase of true
discovery and the expansion and development of those
general conceptions of the processes of nature at which
she aims.

New Chemical Elements. — There can be no doubt
that the past quarter of a century will stand out for

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 69

ever in human history as that in which new chemical
elements, not of an ordinary type, but possessed of
truly astounding properties, were made known with
extraordinary rapidity and sureness of demonstration.
Interesting as the others are, it is the discovery of radio-
activity and of the element radium which so far exceeds
all others in importance that we may well account it a
supreme privilege that it has fallen to our lot to live
in the days of this discovery. No single discovery ever
made by the searchers of nature even approaches that
of radio-activity in respect of the novelty of the
properties of matter suddenly revealed by it. A new
conception of the structure of matter is necessitated
and demonstrated by it, and yet, so far from being
destructive and disconcerting, the new conception fits
in with, grows out of, and justifies the older schemes
which our previous knowledge has formulated.

Before saying more of radio-activity, which is apt to
eclipse in interest every other topic of discourse, I must
recall to you the discovery of the five inert gaseous
elements by Rayleigh and Ramsay, which belongs to
the period on which we are looking back. It was found
that nitrogen obtained from the atmosphere invariably
differed in weight from nitrogen obtained from one of
its chemical combinations ; and thus the conclusion
was arrived at by Rayleigh that a distinct gas is present
in the atmosphere, to the extent of i per cent., which
had hitherto passed for nitrogen. This gas was
separated, and to it the name argon (the lazy one) was
given, on account of its incapacity to combine with
any other element. Subsequently this argon was found
by Ramsay to be itself impure, and from it he obtained
three other gaseous elements equally inert : namely
neon, krypton, and xenon. These were all distinguished

70 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

from one another by the spectrum, the sign-manual
of an element given by the light emitted in each case
by the gas when in an incandescent condition. A fifth
inert gaseous element was discovered by Ramsay as a
constituent of certain minerals which was proved by
its spectrum to be identical with an element discovered
twenty-five years ago by Sir Norman Lockyer in the
atmosphere of the sun, where it exists in enormous
quantities. Lockyer had given the name ' helium ' to
this new solar element, and Ramsay thus found it
locked up in certain rare minerals in the crust of the
earth.

But by helium we are led back to radium, for it
has been found only two years ago by Ramsay and
Soddy that helium is actually formed by a gaseous
emanation from radium. Astounding as the statement
seems, yet that is one of the many unprecedented facts
which recent study has brought to light. The alchemist's
dream is, if not realised, at any rate justified. One
element is actually under our eyes converted into
another; the element radium decays into a gas which
changes into another element, namely helium.

Radium, this wonder of wonders, was discovered
owing to the study of the remarkable phosphorescence,
as it is called — the glowing without heat — of glass
vacuum-tubes through which electric currents are made
to pass. Crookes, Lenard, and Rontgen each played
an important part in this study, showing that peculiar
rays or linear streams of at least three distinct kinds
are set up in such tubes — rays which are themselves in-
visible, but have the property of making glass or other
bodies which they strike glow with phosphorescent light.
The celebrated Rontgen rays make ordinary glass give
out a bright green light ; but they pass through it, and

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 71

cause phosphorescence outside in various substances,
such as barium platino-cyanide, calcium tungstate, and
many other such salts ; they also act on a photographic
plate and discharge an electrified body such as an elec-
troscope. But the most remarkable feature about them
is their power of penetrating substances opaque to ordi-
nary light. They will pass through thin metal plates or
black paper or wood, but are stopped by more or less
dense material. Hence it has been possible to obtain
* shadow pictures ' or skiagraphs by allowing the invisible
Rontgen rays to pass through a limb or even a whole
animal, the denser bone stopping the rays, whilst the
skin, flesh, and blood let them through. They are
allowed to fall (still invisible) on to a photographic plate,
when a picture like an ordinary permanent photograph
is obtained by their chemical action, or they may be
made to exert their phosphorescence-producing power
on a glass plate covered with a thin coating of a phos-
phorescent salt such as barium platino-cyanide, when a
temporary picture in light and shade is seen.

The rays discovered by Rontgen were known as the
X-rays, because their exact nature was unknown. Other
rays studied in the electrified vacuum-tubes are known as
cathode rays or radiant corpuscles, and others, again, as
the Lenard rays.

It occurred to M. Henri Becquerel, as he himself tells
us, to inquire whether other phosphorescent bodies be-
sides the glowing vacuum-tubes of the electricians' labo-
ratory can emit penetrating rays like the X-rays. I say
'other phosphorescent bodies,' for this power of glowing
without heat — of giving out, so to speak, cold light — is
known to be possessed by many mineral substances. It
has become familiar to the public in the form of ' phos-
phorescent paint,' which contains sulphide of calcium, a

72 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

substance which shines in the dark after exposure to sun-
light— that is to say, is phosphorescent. Other sulphides
and the minerals fluor-spar, apatite, some gems, and, in
fact, a whole list of substances have, under different con-
ditions of treatment, this power of phosphorescence or
shining in the dark without combustion or chemical
change. All, however, require some special treatment,
such as exposure to sunlight or heat or pressure, to elicit
the phosphorescence, which is of short duration only.
Many of the compounds of a somewhat uncommon
metallic element, called uranium, used for giving a fine
green colour to glass, are phosphorescent substances,
and it was, fortunately, one of them which Henri Bec-
querel chose for experiment. Henri Becquerel is pro-
fessor in the Jardin des Plantes of Paris ; his laboratory
is a delightful old-fashioned building, which had for me
a special interest and sanctity when, a few years ago, I
visited him there, for, a hundred years before, it was the
dwelling-house of the great Cuvier. Here Henri Bec-
querel's father and grandfather — men renowned throughout
the world for their discoveries in mineralogy, electricity,
and light — had worked, and here he had himself gone
almost daily from his earliest childhood. Many an ex-
periment bringing new knowledge on the relations of light
and electricity had Henri Becquerel carried out in that
quiet old-world place before the day on which, about
twelve years ago, he made the experimental inquiry,
' Does uranium give off penetrating rays like Rontgen
rays ? ' He wrapped a photographic plate in black paper,
and on it placed and left lying there for twenty-four
hours some uranium salt. He had placed a cross, cut
out in thin metallic copper, under the uranium powder,
so as to give some shape to the photographic print should
one be produced. It was produced. Penetrating rays

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 73

were given off by the uranium : the black paper was
penetrated, and the form of the copper cross was printed
on a dark ground (fig. 9). The copper was also penetrated
to some extent by the rays from the uranium, so that its
image was not left actually white. Only one step more
remained before Becquerel made his great discovery. It
was known, as I stated just now, that sulphide of calcium
and similar substances become phosphorescent when ex-
posed to sunlight, and lose this phosphorescence after a
few hours. Becquerel thought at first that perhaps the
uranium salt acquired its power similarly by exposure to
light ; but very soon, by experimenting with uranium

FIG. 9.— HENRI BECQUEREL'S DISCOVERY OF RADIO ACTIVITY.

Photographic print or skiagraph of a copper Maltese Cross'produced
by uranium salt placed as a heap of powder on the surface of black .paper
wrapped round a sensitive plate. Between the paper and the uranium
powder the flat copper cross was interposed. The rays from theruranium
salt have penetrated the black paper, but have been intercepted to a large
extent by the copper cross — so that the sensitive silver plate is darkened
all about the cross — over an area corresponding to that of the heap of
uranium salt, but is left pale where the copper figure blocked the path of
the active rays given off by the uranium, partially but not wholly. It was
thus proved that the rays from the uranium salt can pass through
blackened paper and also though to a less extent through a plate of
copper.

salt long kept in the dark, he found that the emission of
penetrating rays, giving photographic effects, was pro-
duced spontaneously. The emission of rays by this

74 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

particular sample of uranium salt has shown no sign of
diminution since this discovery. The emission of pene-
trating rays by uranium was soon found to be independent
of its phosphorescence. Phosphorescent bodies, as such,
do not emit penetrating rays. Uranium compounds,
whether phosphorescent or not, emit and continue to
emit, these penetrating rays, capable of passing through
black paper and in a less degree through metallic copper.
They do not derive this property from the action of
light or any other treatment. The emission of these
rays discovered by Becquerel is a new property of
matter. It is called ' radio-activity,' and the rays are
called Becquerel rays.

From this discovery by Becquerel to the detection and
separation of the new element radium is an easy step in
thought, though one of enormous labour and difficulty
in practice. Professor Pierre Curie (whose name I can-
not mention without expressing the grief caused to all
men of science by the sad accident by which his life
was taken) and his wife, Madame Sklodowski Curie, in-
cited by Becquerel's discovery, examined the ore called
pitch-blende which is worked in mines in Bohemia and
is found also in Cornwall. It is the ore from which all
commercial uranium is extracted. The Curies found
that pitch-blende has a radio-activity four times more
powerful than that of metallic uranium itself. They at
once conceived the idea that the radio-activity of the
uranium salts examined by Becquerel is due not to the
uranium itself, but to another element present with it
in variable quantities. This proved to be in part true.
The refuse of the first processes by which in the manu-
facturer's works the uranium is extracted from its ore,
pitch-blende, was found to contain four times more of
the radio-active matter than does the pure uranium.

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 75

By a long series of fusions, solutions, and crystallizations
the Curies succeeded in 'hunting down,' as it were, the
radio-active element. The first step gave them a powder
mixed with barium chloride, and having 2,000 times the
activity of the uranium in which Becquerel first proved
the existence of the new property — radio-activity. Then
step by step they purified it to a condition 10,000 times,
then to 100,000 times, and finally to the condition of a
crystalline salt having 1,800,000 times the activity of
Becquerel's sample of uranium. The purification could
go no further, but the extraordinary minuteness of the
quantity of the pure radio-active substance obtained
and the amount of labour and time expended in pre-
paring it may be judged of from the fact that of one
ton of the pitch-blende ore submitted to the process of
purification only the hundredth of a gram — the one-
seventh of a grain — remained.

The amount of radium in pitch-blende is one ten-
millionth per cent. ; rarer than gold in sea- water. The
marvel of this story and of all that follows consists
largely in the skill and accuracy with which our chemists
and physicists have learnt to deal with such infinitesimal
quantities, and the gigantic theoretical results which are
securely posed on this pin-point of substantial matter.

The Curies at once determined that the minute
quantity of colourless crystals they had obtained was
the chloride of a new metallic element with the atomic
weight 225, to which they gave the name radium. The
proof that radium is an element is given by its ' sign-
manual ' — the spectrum which it shows to the observer
when in the incandescent state. It consists of six bright
lines and three fainter lines in the visible part of the
spectrum, and of three very intense lines in the ultra-
violet (invisible) part (fig. 10). A very minute quantity is

76

77

FIG. 10.

A diagram of the visible lines of the spectrum of the elements Radium
and Helium — when rendered incandescent by electric ' sparking ' in a glass
tube : kindly prepared for this book by Mr. Frederick Soddy of the
University of Glasgow. The position of the chief great lines of the solar
spectrum are marked on the lowest horizontal line. On the upper line
the wave-lengths of the rays occupying the position indicated, are given.
The figure 72 means that the wave-length of the ray occupying this
position when refracted by the prism of the spectroscope is, as measured
from crest to crest of the undulation, seven hundred and twenty millionths
of a millimetre. It is generally written 720-0 pp.

Lines exist at the ultra-violet end of the spectrum which can be
photographed but do not affect the eye — that is to say are invisible. On
the other hand the lines of the red end of the spectrum do not produce a
photographic effect. Consequently a 'photographed' spectrum such as
that given in the next figure (fig. n) differs in the lines presented both at
the red and the violet ends from the visible series of lines. The two
(visible and photographed spectra) agree only from wave-length 587-6 /*/*
to wave-length 447-2 pp.

The two spectra given in fig. 10 show how great is the difference in the
position and number of the bands of Radium and Helium — yet as shown
in the next figure (fig. u) the 'emanation' from Radium actually is
transformed into Helium.

78 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

enough for this observation ; the lines given by radium
are caused by no other known element in heaven or
earth. They prove its title to be entered on the roll-call
of elements.

The atomic weight was determined in the usual way
by precipitating the chlorine in a solution of radium
chloride by means of silver. None of the precious ele-
ment was lost in the process, but the Curies never had
enough of it to venture on any attempt to prepare
pure metallic radium. This is a piece of extravagance
no one has yet dared to undertake. Altogether the
Curies did not have more than some four or five grains
of chloride of radium to experiment with, and the total
amount prepared and now in the hands of scientific
men in various parts of the world probably does not
amount to more than sixty grains at most. When
Professor Curie lectured on radium four years ago at
the Royal Institution in London he made use of a small
tube an inch long and of one-eighth bore, containing
nearly the whole of his precious store, wrenched by
such determined labour and consummate skill from tons
of black shapeless pitch-blende. On his return to Paris
he was one day demonstrating in his lecture room with
this precious tube the properties of radium when it
slipped from his hands, broke, and scattered far and
wide the most precious and magical powder ever dreamed
of by alchemist or artist of romance. Every scrap of
dust was immediately and carefully collected, dissolved,
and re-crystallized, and the disaster averted with a loss
of but a minute fraction of the invaluable product.

Thus, then, we have arrived at the discovery of
radium — the new element endowed in an intense form
with the new property ' radio-activity ' discovered by
Becquerel. The wonder of this powder, incessantly and

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 79

without loss, under any and all conditions pouring forth
by virtue of its own intrinsic property powerful rays
capable of penetrating opaque bodies and of exciting
phosphorescence and acting on photographic plates, can
perhaps be realized when we reflect that it is as mar-
vellous as though we should dig up a stone which without
external influence or change, continually poured forth
light or heat, manufacturing both in itself, and not
only continuing to do so without appreciable loss or
change, but necessarily having always done so for count-
less ages whilst sunk beyond the ken of man in the
bowels of the earth.

Wonderful as the story is, so far it is really simple
and commonplace compared with what yet remains to
be told. I will only barely and abruptly state the fact
that radio-activity has been discovered in other elements,
some very rare, such as actinium and polonium ; others
more abundant and already known, such as thorium and
uranium, though their radio-activity was not known until
Becquerel's pioneer-discovery. It is a little strange and
no doubt significant that, after all, pure uranium is
found to have a radio-activity of its own and not to have
been altogether usurping the rights of its infinitesimal
associate.

The winders connected with radium really begin
when the experimental examination of the properties of
a few grains is made. What I am saying here is not
a systematic, technical account of radium ; so I shall
venture to relate some of the story as it impresses me.

Leaving aside for a moment what has been done in
regard to the more precise examination of the rays
emitted by radium, the following astonishing facts have
been found out in regard to it : (i) If a glass tube con-
taining radium is much handled or kept in the waistcoat

8o THE KINGDOM OF MAN

pocket, it produces a destruction of the skin and flesh
over a small area — in fact, a sore place. (2) The smallest
trace of radium brought into a room where a charged
electroscope is present, causes the discharge of the
electroscope. So powerful is this electrical action of
radium that a very sensitive electrometer can detect the
presence of a quantity of radium five hundred thousand
times more minute than that which can be detected by
the spectroscope (that is to say, by the spectroscopic
examination of a flame in which minute traces of radium
are present). (3) Radium actually realizes one of the
properties of the hypothetical stone to which I compared
it, giving out light and heat. For it does give out heat
which it makes itself incessantly and without appreciable
loss of substance or energy (' appreciable ' is here an im-
portant qualifying term). It is also faintly self-luminous.
Fairly sensitive thermometers show that a few granules
of radium salt have always a higher temperature than
that of surrounding bodies. Radium has been proved to
give out enough heat to melt rather more than its own
weight of ice every hour; enough heat in one hour to
raise its own weight of water from the freezing-point to
the boiling-point. After a year and six weeks a gram of
radium has emitted enough heat to raise the temperature
of a thousand kilograms of water one degree. And this
is always going on. Even a small quantity of radium
diffused through the earth will suffice to keep up its
temperature against all loss by radiation ! If the sun
consists of a fraction of one per cent, of radium this
will account for and make good the heat that is annually
iost by it.

This is a tremendous fact, upsetting all the calcula-
tions of physicists as to the duration in past and future
of the sun's heat and the temperature of the earth's

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 81

surface. The geologists and the biologists have long
contended that some thousand million years must have
passed during which the earth's surface has presented
approximately the same conditions of temperature as at
present, in order to allow time for the evolution of living
things and the formation of the aqueous deposits of the
earth's crust. The physicists, notably Professor Tait
and Lord Kelvin, refused to allow more than ten million
years (which they subsequently increased to a hundred
million) — basing this estimate on the rate of cooling of
a sphere of the size and composition of the earth. They
have assumed that its material is self-cooling. But, as
Huxley pointed out, mathematics will not give a true
result when applied to erroneous data. It has now,
within these last five years, become evident that the
earth's material is not self-cooling, but on the contrary
self-heating. And away go the restrictions imposed by
physicists on geological time. They now are willing to
give us not merely a thousand million years, but as many
more as we want.

And now I have to mention the strangest of all the
proceedings of radium — a proceeding in which the other
radio-active bodies, actinium and thorium, resemble it.
This proceeding has been entirely Rutherford's discovery
in Canada, and his name must be, always associated with
it. Radium (he discovered) is continually giving off,
apart from and in addition to the rectilinear darting
rays of Becquerel — an ' emanation ' — a gaseous ' emana-
tion.' This ' emanation ' is radio-active — that is, gives
off Becquerel rays — and deposits 'something' upon bodies
brought near the radium so that they become radio-
active, and remain so for a time after the radium is
itself removed. This emanation is always being formed
by a radium salt, and may be most easily collected by

G

82 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

dissolving the salt in water, when it comes away with
a rush, as a gas. Sixty milligrams of bromide of radium
yielded to Ramsay and Soddy "124 (or about one-eighth)
of a cubic millimetre of this gaseous emanation. What
is it ? It cannot be destroyed or altered by heat or by
chemical agents; it is a heavy gas, having a molecular
density of 100, and it can be condensed to a liquid by
exposing it to the great cold of liquid air. It gives a
peculiar spectrum of its own, and is probably a hitherto
unknown inert gas — a new element similar to argon.
But this by no means completes its history, even so far
as experiments have as yet gone. The radium emanation
decays, changes its character altogether, and loses half
its radio-activity every four days. Precisely at the same
rate as it decays the specimen of radium salt from which
it was removed forms a new quantity of emanation,
having just the amount of radio-activity which has been
lost by the old emanation. All is not known about the
decay of the emanation, but one thing is absolutely
certain, having first been discovered by Ramsay and
Soddy and subsequently confirmed by independent ex-
periment by Madame Curie. It is this : After being
kept three or four days the emanation becomes, in part
at least, converted into helium — the light gas (second
only in the list of elements to hydrogen), the gas found
twenty-five years ago by Lock} er in the sun, and since
obtained in some quantities from rare radio-active mine-
rals by Ramsay! The proof of the formation of helium
from the radium emanation is, of course, obtained by the
spectroscope, and its evidence is beyond assail (see fig. n).
Here, then, is the partial conversion or decay of one
element, radium, through an intermediate stage into
another. And not only that, but if, as seems probable,
the presence of helium indicates the previous presence

CO in N <r

V '-, M '-,

o o CTI rv

Tube containing
Helium gas de-
rived from the
mineral Cleve-
landite.

( Tube of Radium
J emanation, a
I year old.

pube of Hydro-
J gen gas for
I comparison.

FIG. n.

Photographs of the "spark ' spectra of A, Helium as extracted from
the mineral Clevelandite of B, the Radium "emanation" after a year's
enclosure in the tube used and of C of Hydrogen gas : copied from the
paper by Mr. F. Giesel in the Bsrichte der Deutschcn Chimisehen Gesellschajt,
vol. xxxix, part 10.

The three photographs are accurately super-imposed so as to show the
coincident lines.

The spectrum B of the tube containing radium emanation is the one
which we are comparing with the other two. When the radium
emanation was first enclosed there was only a small quantity of helium
developed in it, but after keeping for a year the quantity has greatly
increased. After five minutes "sparking" (passage of the electric spark
through the tube) the chief lines of helium become evident but faint in
intensity. The present photograph B was obtained after forty minutes
sparking, and one result of that longer "sparking " has been that a minute
quantity of water vapour in the tube has been broken up— so as to yield the
hydrogen spectrum, which is accordingly seen accompanying the now strong
and brightly developed helium spectrum.

The lines of the spectrum B which correspond with those of hydrogen
are at once recognised by the juxtaposition (below) of the pure Hydrogen
spectrum from another tube — C : the lines in B belonging to and indicating
helium are also recognised by comparison with the pure helium spectrum
of the tube A juxta-posed above. A very few of the lines m B must be due
to other minimal impurities as they are not present either in A or C.

Thirteen lines of the helium spectrum are thus photographed and
recognised in the radium emanation.

The following lines are present in the photographic but invisible
spectrum of radium (not given m fig. 10), viz. at 3^1-47 [*./* (the strongest
line in the radium spectrum) and at 364-96 (a strong line).

In the photographic but invisible spectrum of helium there are three
very faint lines between wave-length 447-2 and 443-7 (appearing as two
•only in our photograph) ; a moderately strong one at 438-8 ; others at
414-4, at 412-1, at 402-6, and 396-5 ; a very strong one is present at 388-9,
and a very faint one at 381-9. All these are seen in the photograph A and
also in B. Special treatment and spectroscopes reveal four other very
faint lines in the helium spectrum — the one furthest in the invisible
direction (that is of highest refrangibility and lowest wave-length) being
plactd at 3186 (Soddy).

G 2

84 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

of radium, we have the evidence of enormous quantities
of radium in the sun, for we know helium is there in vast
quantity. Not only that, but inasmuch as helium has
been discovered in most hot springs and in various radio-
active minerals in the earth, it may be legitimately argued
that no inconsiderable quantity of radium is present in
the earth. Indeed, it now seems probable that there is
enough radium in the sun to keep up its continual output
of heat, and enough in the earth to make good its loss
of heat by radiation into space, for an almost indefinite
period. Other experiments of a similar kind have ren-
dered it practically certain that radium itself is formed
by a somewhat similar transformation of uranium, so that
our ideas as to the permanence and immutability on this
globe of the chemical elements are destroyed, and must
give place to new conceptions. It seems not improbable
that the final product of the radium emanation after the
helium is removed is or becomes the metal lead !

It must be obvious from all the foregoing that radium
is very slowly, but none the less surely, destroying itself.
There is a definite loss of particles which, in the course
of time, must lead to the destruction of the radium, and
it would seem that the large new credit on the bank of
time given to biologists in consequence of its discovery
has a definite, if remote, limit. With the quantities of
radium at present available for experiment, the amount
of loss of particles is so small, and the rate so slow,
that it cannot be weighed by the most delicate balance.
Nevertheless it has been calculated that radium will
transform half of itself in about fifteen hundred years,
and unless it were being produced in some way all .of
the radium now in existence would disappear much too
soon to make it an important geological factor in the
maintenance of the earth's temperature. As a reply to

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 85

this depreciatory statement we have the discovery by
Rutherford and others that radium is continually being
formed afresh, and from that particular element in con-
nection with which it was discovered — namely, uranium.
Hypotheses and experiments as to the details of this
process are at this moment in full swing, and results
of a momentous kind, involving the building-up of an
element with high atomic weight by the interaction of
elements with a lower atomic weight, are thought by
some physicists to be not improbable in the immediate
future.

The delicate electric test for radio-activity has been
largely applied in the last few years to ail sorts and
conditions of matter. As a result it appears that the
radium emanation is always present in our atmosphere ;
that the air in caves is especially rich in it, as are
underground waters. Tin-foil, glass, silver, zinc, lead,
copper, platinum and aluminium are, all of them,
slightly radio-active. The question has been raised
whether this widespread radio-activity is due to the
wide dissemination of infinitesimal quantities of strong
radio-active elements, or whether it is the natural in-
trinsic property of all matter to emit Becquerel rays.
This is the immediate subject of research.

Over and above the more simply appreciable facts
which I have thus narrated, there comes the necessary
and difficult inquiry, What does it all mean ? What
are the Becquerel rays of radio-activity ? What must
we conceive to be the structure and mechanism of the
atoms of radium and allied elements, which can not
only pour forth ceaseless streams of intrinsic energy
from their own isolated substance, but are perpetu-
ally, though in infinitesimal proportions, changing
their elemental nature spontaneously, so as to give

86 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

rise to other atoms which we recognise as other
elements ?

I cannot venture as an expositor into this field. It
belongs to that wonderful group of men, the modern
physicist?, who with an almost weird power of visual
imagination combine the great instrument of exact
statement and mental manipulation called mathematics,
and possess an ingenuity and delicacy in appropriate
experiment which must fill all who even partially follow'
their triumphant handling of Nature with reverence and
admiration. Such men now or recently among us are
Kelvin, Clerk Maxwell, Crookes, Rayleigh, and J. J.
Thomson.

Becquerel showed early in his study of the rays
emitted by radium that some of them could be bent
out of their straight path by making them pass between
the poles of a powerful electro-magnet. In this way
have finally been distinguished three classes of rays
given off by radium : (i) the alpha rays, which are only
slightly bent, and have little penetrative power ; (2) the
beta rays, easily bent in a direction opposite to that in
which the alpha rays bend, and of considerable pene-
trative power ; (3) the gamma rays, which are absolutely
unbendable by the strongest magnetic force, and have
an extraordinary penetrative power, producing a photo-
graphic effect through a foot thickness of solid iron.

The alpha rays are shown to be streams of tiny
bodies positively electrified, such as are given off by
gas flames and red-hot metals. The particles have
about twice the mass of a hydrogen atom, and they
fiy off with a velocity of 20,000 miles a second ; that
is, 40,000 times greater than that of a rifle bullet.
The heat produced by radium is ascribed to the impact
of these particles of the alpha rays.

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 87

The beta rays are streams of corpuscles similar to
those given off by the cathode in a vacuum tube.
They are charged with negative electricity and travel at
the velocity of 100,000 miles a second. They are far
more minute than the alpha particles. Their mass is
equal to the one-thousandth of a hydrogen atom. They
produce the major part of the photographic and phos-
phorescent effects of the radium rays.

The gamma rays are apparently the same, or nearly
the same, thing as the X-rays of Rontgen. They are
probably not particles at all, but pulses or waves in
the ether set up during the ejection of the corpuscles
which constitute the beta rays. They produce the
same effects in a much smaller degree as do the beta
rays, but are more penetrating.

The kind of conceptions to which these and like
discoveries have led the modern physicist in regard to
the character of that supposed unbreakable body — the
chemical atom — the simple and unaffected friend of our
youth — are truly astounding. Nevertheless, they are
not destructive of our previous conceptions, but rather
elaborations and developments of the simpler views, in-
troducing the notion of structure and mechanism,
agitated and whirling with tremendous force, into what
we formerly conceived of as homogeneous or simply
built-up particles, the earlier conception being not so
much a positive assertion of simplicity as a non-com-
mittal expectant formula awaiting the progress of know-
ledge and the revelations which are now in our hands.

As I have already stated, the attempt to show in
detail how the marvellous properties of radium and
radio-activity in general are thus capable of a pictorial
or structural representation is beyond the limits of the
present essay; but the fact that such speculations

88 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

furnish a scheme into which the observed phenomena can
be fitted is what we may take on the authority of the
physicists and chemists of our day.

Intimately connected with all the work which has
been done in the past twenty-five years in the nature
and possible transformations of atoms is the great
series of investigations and speculations on astral chem-
istry and the development of the chemical elements
which we owe to the unremitting labour during this
period of Sir Norman Lockyer.

Wireless telegraphy. — Of great importance has been the
whole progress in the theory and practical handling of
electrical phenomena of late years. The discovery of
the Hertzian waves and their application to wireless
telegraphy is a feature of this period, though I may re-
mind some of those who have been impressed by these
discoveries that the mere fact of electrical action at
a distance is that which hundreds of years ago gave to
electricity its name. The power which we have gained
of making an instrument oscillate in accordance with a
predetermined code of signalling, although detached and
a thousand miles distant, does not really lend any new
support1 to the notion that the old-time beliefs of thought-
transference and second sight are more than illusions
based on incomplete observation and imperfect reasoning.
For the important factors in such human intercourse —
namely, a signalling-instrument and a code of signals —
have not been discovered, as yet in the structure of the
human body, and have to be consciously devised and
manufactured by man in the only examples of thought-

1 It seems necessary to emphasize that I here say merely that no
" new support " is given to the notion of so-called telepathy, a support
some persons have wrongly claimed. I do not say that the notion is
rendered less likely to prove true than it was before.

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 89

transference over long distances at present discovered or
laid bare to experiment and observation.

High and low temperatures. — The past quarter of a
century has witnessed a great development and applica-
tion of the methods of producing both very low and very
high temperatures. Sir James Dewar, by improved
apparatus, has produced liquid hydrogen and a fall of
temperature probably reaching to the absolute zero. A
number of applications of extremely low temperatures to
research in various directions has been rendered possible
by the facility with which they may now be produced.
Similarly high temperatures have been employed in con-
tinuation of the earlier work of Deville, and others by
Moissan, the distinguished French chemist.

Progress in Chemistry. — In chemistry generally the
theoretical tendency guiding a great deal of work has
been the completion and verification of the ' periodic law '
of Mendeleeff; and, on the other hand, the search by
physical agents such as light and electricity for evidence
as to the arrangement of atoms in the molecules of the
most diverse chemical compounds. The study of
* valency ' and its outcome, stereo-chemistry, have been
the special lines in which chemistry has advanced. As a
matter of course hundreds, if not thousands, of new
chemical bodies have been produced in the laboratory of
greater or less theoretical interest. The discovery of the
greatest practical and industrial importance in this con-
nection is the production of indigo by synthetical pro-
cesses, first by laboratory and then by factory methods, so
as to compete successfully with the natural product.
Von Baeyer and Heumann are the names associated with
this remarkable achievement, which has necessarily dis-
located a large industry which derived its raw material
from British India.

91

FIG. 12.

This figure should be examined with a magnifying glass. It is a
direct reproduction of a photograph of a detached nebula and sur-
rounding stars in Cygnus by Dr. Max Wolf of Heidelberg (reproduced
by permission from the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical
Society, vol.. Ixiv, Plate 18, p. 839, q.v.). The exposure was four hours on
July ioth, 1904, with a camera the lenses of which have a diameter of
sixteen inches. The picture is enlarged so that the apparent diameter of
the Sun or Moon would be about i£ inch on the same scale (one minute,
or sixtieth of a degree, equals one millimetre).

The "apparent diameter" of the sun or moon is about one in 115:
that is to say that a covering disc of any size you like can be made
exactly to coincide with and " cover " the disc of the sun or moon provided
that you place it at a distance from the eye equal to 115 times its own
diameter — thus a disc of an inch in diameter (say a halfpenny) will just
"cover" the sun or moon if placed at a distance from the eye of a little
less than ten feet, a threepenny piece will cover it at about six feet, and a
disc of somewhat less than half that size when held at arm's length.

The nebula (on the horizontal A A) is seen surrounded by a dark
space — at the end of a long dark lane or "rift" which reminds us of the
track left by a snowball rolled along in the snow. Has the nebula in some
mysterious way swept up the stars in its journey through space ? We
cannot at present either affirm or deny such interpretations.

One or two of the brightest of the surrounding stars might just be seen
by an acute eye unaided by a telescope — but no more. The best existing
telescopes would show only the large nebular body on the line A A) and
the larger white spots ; the finest dust-like particles are stars of which the
existence is only demonstrated by prolonged photographic exposures such
as this, with a lens which focuses its image on to the dry plate. The old
" wet-plate " would not remain wet sufficiently long to " take " the picture.

It should be borne in mind in looking at this picture that each of the
minutest white spots is probably of at least the same size as our own sun :
further, that each is probably surrounded by a planetary system similar
to our own.

92 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

Astronomy. — A biologist may well refuse to offer any
remarks on his own authority in regard to this earliest
and grandest of all the sciences. I will therefore at once
say that my friend the Savilian Professor of Astronomy in
Oxford has turned my thoughts in the right direction in
regard to this subject. There is no doubt that there has
been an immense ' revival ' in astronomy since 1881 ; it
has developed in every direction. The invention of the
' dry plate/ which has made, it possible to apply photo-
graphy freely in all astronomical work, is the chief cause
of its great expansion. Photography was applied to
astronomical work before 1881, but only with difficulty
and haltingly. It was the dry-plate (see Fig. 12) which
made long exposures possible, and thus enabled astrono-
mers to obtain regular records of faintly luminous objects
such as nebulae and star-spectra. Roughly speaking, the
number of stars visible to the naked eye may be stated as
eight thousand : this is raised by the use of our best
telescopes to some hundred million. But the number
which can be photographed is indefinite and depends on
length of exposure : some thousands of millions can
certainly be so recorded.

The serious practical proposal to * chart the sky ' by
means of photography certainly dates from this side of
1881. The Paris Conference of 1887, which made an
international scheme for sharing the sky among eighteen
observatories (still busy with the work, and producing
excellent results), originated with photographs of the
comet of 1882, taken at the Cape Observatory.

Professor Pickering, of Harvard, did not join this
co-operative scheme, but has gradually devised methods
of charting the sky very rapidly, so that he has at
Harvard records of the whole sky many times over, and
when new objects are discovered he can trace their

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 93

history backwards for more than a dozen years by refer-
ence to his plates. This is a wonderful new method, a
mode of keeping record of present movements and changes
which promises much for the future of astronomy. By
the photographic method hundreds of new variable stars
and other interesting objects have been discovered. New
planets have been detected by the hundred. Up to 1881
two hundred and twenty were known. In 1881 only one
was found; namely, Stephariia, being No. 220, discovered
on May 19. Now a score at least are discovered every
year. Over 500 are now known. One of these — Eros —
(No. 433) is particularly interesting, since it is nearer to
the sun than is Mars, and gives a splendid opportunity for
fixing with increased accuracy the sun's distance from the
earth. Two new satellites to Saturn and two to Jupiter
have been discovered by photography (besides one to
Jupiter in 1892 by the visual telescope of the Lick Obser-
vatory). One of the new satellites of Saturn goes round
that planet the wrong way, thus calling for a funda-
mental revision of our ideas of the origin of the solar
system.

The introduction of photography has made an
immense difference in spectroscopic work. The. spectra
of the stars have been readily mapped out and classified,
and now the motions in the line of sight of faint stars
can be determined. This ' motion in the line of sight,'
which was discernible but scarcely measurable with
accuracy before, now provides one of the most refined
methods in astronomy for ascertaining the dimensions
and motions of the universe. It gives us velocities in
miles per second instead of in an angular unit to be inter-
preted by a very imperfect knowledge of the star's
distance. The method, initiated practically by Huggins
thirteen years before, was in 1881 regarded by many

94 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

astronomers as a curiosity. Visual observations were
begun at Greenwich in 1875, but were found to be affected
by instrumental errors. The introduction of dry plates,
and their application by Vogel in 1887, was the be-
ginning of general use of the method, and line-of-sight
work is now a vast department of astronomical industry.
Among other by-products of the method are the ' spec-
troscopic doubles,' stars which we know to be double,
and of which we can determine the period of revolution,
though we cannot separate them visually by the greatest
telescope.

Work on the sun has been entirely revolutionised
by the use of photography. The last decade has seen
the invention of the spectro-heliograph — which simply
means that astronomers can now study in detail portions
of the sun of which they could previously only get a bare
indication.

More of the same story could be related, but enough
has been said to show how full of life and progress is
this most ancient and imposing of all sciences.

A minor though very important influence in the
progress of astronomy has been the provision, by the
expenditure of great wealth in America, of great tele-
scopes and equipments.

In 1877 Sir George Darwin started a line of mathe-
matical research which has been very fruitful and is of great
future promise for astronomy. As recently as last April,
at the Royal Astronomical Society, two important papers
were read — one by Mr. Cowell and the other by Mr.
Stratton — which have their roots in Sir George Darwin's
work. The former was led to suggest that the day is
lengthening ten times as rapidly as had been supposed,
and the latter showed that in all probability the planets
had all turned upside down since their birth.

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 95

And yet M. Brunettiere and his friends wish us to
believe that science is bankrupt and has no new things
in store for humanity.

Geology. — In the field of geological research the main
feature in the past twenty-five years has been the in-
creasing acceptance of the evolutionary as contrasted
with the uniformitarian view of geological phenomena.
The great work of Suess, ' Das Antlitz der Erde,' is
undoubtedly the most important contribution to physical
geology within the period. The first volume appeared
in 1885, and the impetus which it has given to the
science may be judged of by the epithet applied to the
views for which Suess is responsible — ' the New Geology.'
Suess attempts to trace the orderly sequence of the
principal changes in the earth's crust since it first began to
form. He strongly opposes the old theory of elevation,
and accounts for the movements as due to differential
collapse of the crust, accompanied by folding due to
tangential stress. Among special results gained by
geologists in the period we survey may be cited new
views as to the origin of the crystalline schists, favouring
a return to something like the hypogene origin advocated
by Lyell ; the facts as to deep-sea deposits, now in course
of formation, embodied in the ' Challenger ' reports on
that subject : the increasing discrimination and tracking
of those minor divisions of strata called * zones ' ; the
assignment of the Olenellus fauna of Cambrian age to
a position earlier than that of the Paradoxides fauna ;
the discovery of Radiolaria in palaeozoic rocks by special
methods of examination, and the recognition of Grapto-
lites as indices of geological horizons in lower palaeozoic
beds. Glacially eroded rocks in boulder-clays of permo-
carboniferous age have been recognised in many parts
of the world (e.g., Australia and South Africa), and thus

96 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

the view put forward by W. T. Blanford as to the
occurrence of the same phenomena in conglomerates of
this age in India is confirmed. Eozoon is finally
abandoned as owing its structure to an organism. The
oldest fossiliferous beds known to us are still far from
the beginning of life. They contain a highly developed
and varied animal fauna — and something like the whole
of the older moiety of rocks of aqueous origin have failed
as yet to present us with any remains of the animals or
plants which must have inhabited the seas which
deposited them. The boring of a coral reef initiated
by Professor Sollas at the Nottingham meeting of the
British Association in 1893 was successfully carried out,
and a depth of 1,114!- feet reached. Information of great
value to geologists was thus obtained.

Animal and Vegetable Morphography. — Were I to
attempt to give an account of the new kinds of animals and
plants discovered since 1881, I should have to offer a
bare catalogue, for space would not allow me to explain
the interest attaching to each. Explorers have been
busy in all parts of the world — in Central Africa, in the
Antarctic, in remote parts of China, in Patagonia and
Australia, and on the floor of the ocean as well as in
caverns, on mountain tops, and in great lakes and rivers.
We have learnt much that is new as to distribution ;
countless new forms have been discovered, and careful
anatomical and microscopical study conducted on
specimens sent home to our laboratories. I cannot
refrain from calling to mind the discovery of the eggs
of the Australian duck-mole and hedgehog; the fresh-
water jelly-fish (figs. 13, 14, and 15) of Regent's Park,
the African lakes (fig. 16) and the Delaware River ; the
marsupial mole of Central Australia; the okapi (figs. 17,
18, and 19) ; the breeding and transformations of the

97

FIG. 13.

The Freshwater Jelly-fish of Regent's Park (Limnocodium Sowerbii)
magnified five times linear.

It was discovered in the tropical lily tank of the Botanical Gardensrin
June, 1880, and swarmed in great numbers year after year — then suddenly
disappeared. It has since been found in similar tanks in Sheffield, Lyons,
and Munich. Only male specimens were discovered, and the native. home
of the wonderful visitor is still unknown.

EC

FIG. 14.

The minute polyp attached
to the rootlets of water-plants —
from which the Jelly-fish Limno-
codium was found to be ' budded
off.'

FIG. 15.

One of the peculiar sense-
organs from the edge of the swim-
ming disc of Limnocodium. C,
cavity of capsule ; EC, ectoderm ;
EN, endoderm. Sense-organs' of
identical structure are found hrthe
Freshwater Jelly-fish of Lake Tan-
ganyika and in no other jelly-fish.
H

g8 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

common eel (fig. 20) ; the young and adult of the mud-
fishes of Australia, Africa, and South America ; the fishes
of the Nile and Congo ; the gill-bearing earth-worms
and mud-worms ; the various forms of the caterpillar-like
Peripatus ; strange deep-sea fishes, polyps and sponges.
The main result of a good deal of such investigation

FIG. 16.

The Freshwater Jelly-fish of Lake Tanganyika (Limnocodium Tan-
ganyicae), magnified five times linear. Since its discovery in Tanganyika it
has-been found also in the Lake Victoria Nyanza and in pools in the
Upper Niger basin.

is measured by our increased knowledge of the pedigree
of organisms, what used to be called ' classification.'
The anatomical study by the Australian professors, Hill
and Wilson, of the teeth and the foetus of the Austra-
lian group of pouched mammals — the marsupials — has

99

FIG. 17.

The Giraffe-like animal called the Okapi, discovered by Sir Harry
Johnston in the Congo Forest. Photograph of the skin of a female sent
home by him in 1901, and now mounted and exhibited in the Natural
History Museum.

FIG. 18.

Two " bandoliers " cut by the natives from the striped part of the skin
{the haunches) and at first supposed to be bits of the hide of a new kind of
.Zebra. These were sent home by Sir Harry Johnston in 1900.

H 2

IOO

THE KINGDOM OF MAN

entirely upset previous notions, to the effect that these
are a primitive group, and has shown that their posses-
sion of only one replacing tooth is a retention of one
out of many such teeth (the germs of which are present),
as in placental mammals; and further that many of
these marsupials have the nourishing outgrowth of the
foetus called the placenta fairly well developed, so that

FIG. 19.

Photograph of the skull of a male Okapi — showing the paired boney
horn-cores — similar to those of the Giraffe, but connected with the frontal
bones and not with the parietals as the horn-cores of Giraffes are.

they must be regarded as a degenerate side-branch of
the placental mammals, and not as primitive fore-
runners of that dominant series.

Speculations as to the ancestral connection of the
great group of vertebrates with other great groups have
been varied and ingenious ; but most naturalists are
now inclined to the view that it is a mistake to assume

;THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE

101

any such connection in the case of vertebrates of a
more definite character than we admit in the case of
starfishes, shell-fish, and insects. All these groups are

FIG. 20.

Drawings by Professor Grassi, of Rome, of the young of the common
Eel and its metamorphosis. All of the natural size. The uppermost figure
represents a transparent glass-like creature — which was known as a rare
"find" to marine naturalists, and received the name Leptoc'phalus.
Really it lives in vast numbers in great depths of the sea — five hundred
fathoms and more. It is hatched here from the eggs of the common Eel
which descends from the ponds, lakes, and rivers of Europe in order to
breed in these great depths. The gradual change of the Leptocephalus
into a young Eel or "Elver" is shown, and was discovered by Grassi.
The young Eels leave the great depth of the ocean and ascend the rivers
in immense shoals of many hundred thousand individuals, and wriggle
their way up banks and rocks into the small streams and pools of the
continent.

The above figures were published by Professor Grassi in Nove mber
1896, in the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, edited by E. Ray
Lankester and published by Churchill & Sons.

102

THE KINGDOM OF MAN

ultimately connected by very simple, remote, and not
by proximate ancestors, with one another and with the
ancestors of vertebrates.

The origin of the limbs of vertebrates is now gener-
ally agreed to be correctly indicated in the Thatcher-

FlG. 21.

The unicellular parasite ?Benedenia, from the gut of the common
Poulp or Octopus. i,---is'ithe normal male individual; 2 and 3 show
stages in the production of spermatozoa on its surface by budding ;
4, 5 and 6 show a female parasite with spermatozoa approaching it :

FIG. 22.

Production of spermatozoa on the surface of the unicellular parasite
Coccidium oviforme, from the Rabbit's intestines.

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE

103

Mivart-Balfour theory to the effect that they are derived
from a pair of continuous lateral fins, in fish-like
ancestors, similar in every way to the continuous median
dorsal fin of fishes.

The discovery of the formation of true spermatozoa
by simple unicellular animals of the group Protozoa is
a startling thing, for it had always been supposed that
these peculiar reproductive elements were only formed
by multicellular organisms (figs. 21, 22, and 23). They

FIG. 23.

Spermatozoa (often called " microgametes ") of the unicellular parasite
Ecliinospora found in the gut of the small Centipede Litholius mutabilis.

have been discovered in some of the gregarina-like
animalcules, the Coccidia, and also in the blood-
parasites.

Among plants one of the most important discoveries
relates to these same reproductive elements, the sper-
matozoa, which by botanists are called antherozoids.
A great difference between the whole higher series of
plants, the flowering plants or phanerogams, and the

104 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

cryptogams or lower plants, including ferns, mosses,
and algae, was held to be that the latter produce
vibratile spermatozoa like those of animals which swim
in liquid and fertilise the motionless egg-cell of the
plant. Two Japanese botanists (and the origin of this
discovery from Japan, from the University of Tokio,
in itself marks an era in the history of science), Hirase
and Ikeno, astonished the botanical world fifteen years
ago by showing that motile antherozoids or spermatozoa
are produced by two gymnosperms, the ging-ko tree
(or Salisbury a) and the cycads (fig. 24). The pollen-tube,
which is the fertilising agent in all other phanerogams,

FIG. 24.

Spermatozoa (antherozoids) of Cycas revoluta, seen from the side and
from above. The spermatozoon is spherical, carrying a spiral band of
minute vibratile hairs (cilia) by which it is propelled.

develops in these cone-bearing trees, beautiful motile sper-
matozoa, which swim in a cup of liquid provided for them
in connection with the ovules. Thus a great distinction
between phanerogams and cryptogams was broken down,
and the actual nature of the pollen-tube as a potential
parent of spermatozoids demonstrated.

When we come to the results of the digging out
and study of extinct plants and animals, the most
remarkable results of all in regard to the affinities and
pedigree of organisms have been obtained. Among
plants the transition between cryptogams and phanero-

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 105

gams has been practically bridged over by the discovery
that certain fern-like plants of the Coal Measures —
the Cycadofilices, supposed to be true ferns, are really
seed-bearing plants and not ferns at all, but phanerogams
of a primitive type, allied to the cycads and gymno-
sperms. They have been re-christened Pteridosperms
by Scott, who, together with F. Oliver and Seward,
has been the chief discoverer in this most interesting
field.

By their fossil remains whole series of new genera
of extinct mammals have been traced through the
tertiary strata of North America and their genetic
connections established ; and from yet older strata of
the same prolific source we have almost complete know-
ledge of several genera of huge extinct Dinosauria of
great variety of form and habit (fig. 25).

The discoveries by Seeley at the Cape, and by Ama-
litzky in North Russia of identical genera of Triassic
reptiles, which in many respects resemble the Mammalia
and constitute the group Theromorpha, is also a pro-
minent feature in the palaeontology of the past twenty-
five years (fig. 26). Nor must we forget the extraordinary
Devonian and Silurian fishes discovered and described by
Professor Traquair (figs. 27 and 28). The most impor-
tant discovery of the kind of late years has been that
of the Upper Eocene and Miocene Mammals of the
Egyptian Fayum, excavated by the Egyptian Geological
Survey and by Dr. Andrews of the Natural History
Museum, who has described and figured the remains.
They include a huge four-horned animal as big as a
rhinoceros, but quite peculiar in its characters — the
Arisino'itherium — and the ancestors of the elephants, a
group which was abundant in Miocene and Pliocene times
in Europe and Asia, and in still later times in America,

io6

107

FIG. 26.

Photograph of the skeleton of a large carnivorous Reptile from
Triassic strata in North Russia, discovered by Professor Amalitzky and
named by him, Inostransevia. The head alone is two feet in length. •

FIG. 27.

Photographs of completed models of the Devonian fish Drepanaspis,
from Devonian slates of North Germany, worked out by Professor
Traquair. The models are in the Natural History Museum, London.

io8 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

and survives at the present day in its representatives the
African and Indian elephant. One of the European
extinct elephants — the Tetrabelodon — had, we have long
known, an immensely long lower jaw with large chisel-
shaped terminal teeth. It had been suggested by me that
the modern elephant's trunk must have been derived from
the soft upper jaw and nasal area, which rested on this
elongated lower jaw, by the shortening (in the course
of natural selection and modification by descent) of
this long lower jaw, to the present small dimensions
of the elephant's lower jaw, and the consequent down-
dropping of the unshortened upper jaw and lips, which

FIG. 28.

The oldest fossil fish known — discovered in the Upper Silurian strata
of Scotland, and named Birkenia by Professor Traquair.

thus become the proboscis. Dr. Andrews has described
from Egypt and placed in the Museum in London
specimens of two new genera — one Palceomastodon, in
which there is a long, powerful jaw, an elongated face,
and an increased number of molar teeth (see figs. 29
and 30) ; the second, Meritherium (fig. 31), an animal
with a hippopotamus-like head, comparatively minute
tusks, and a well-developed complement of incisor, canine,
and molar teeth, like a typical ungulate mammal. Un-
doubtedly we have in these two forms the indications of
the steps by which the elephants have been evolved from
ordinary-looking pig-like creatures of moderate size,
devoid of trunk or tusks. Other remains belonging to
this great mid-African Eocene fauna indicate that not

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 109

only the Elephants but the Sirenia (the Dugong and
Manatee) took their origin in this area. Amongst them
are also gigantic forms of Hyrax, like the little Syrian
coney and many other new mammals and reptiles.

Another great area of exploration and source of new
things has been the southern part of Argentina and

FIG. 29.

Photograph of a complete model of the skull and lower jaw of the
ancestral elephant, Palaomastodon, discovered by Dr. Andrews in the
Upper Eocene of the Fayum Desert, Egypt, and modelled and restored
under his direction in the Natural History Museum, London The com-
paratively short trunk or snout rested on the broad front teeth of the long
lower jaw. The face is elongated, and the cheek-teeth are numerous.

Patagonia, where Ameghino, Moreno, and Scott of
Princeton have brought to light a wonderful series of

FIG. 30.

Photograph of the lower face of the skull of a specimen of Palao-
mzstodon brought from Egypt in April, 1906, by Dr. Andrews, and now in
tae Natural History Museum, London. The six characteristic cheek-teeth
on each side, and the pair of sabre-like tusks in front, are well seen.

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE

in

extinct ant-eaters, armadilloes, huge sloths, and strange
ungulates, reaching back into early Tertiary times. But
most remarkable has been the discovery in this area of
remains which indicate a former connection with the

FIG. 31.

Drawing of the skull and lower jaw of the Mcritherium, discovered by
Dr. Andrews in the Upper Eocene of the Fayum Desert. The shape of
the skull and proportions of face and jaw are like those of an ordinary
hoofed mammal such as the pig ; but the cheek-teeth are similar to those
of the Mastodon, and whilst the full complement of teeth is present in
the front of the upper jaw, we can distinguish the big tusk -like incisor
which alone survives on each side in Palceomastodon, Mastodon, and the
elephants, as the great pair of tusks.

ii2 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

Australian land surface. This connection is suggested
by the discovery in the Santa Cruz strata, considered
to be of early Tertiary date, of remains of a huge horned
tortoise which is generically identical with one found
fossil in the Australian area of later date, and known
as Miolania. In the same wonderful area we have the
discovery in a cave of the fresh bones, hairy skin, and
dung of animals supposed to be extinct, viz., the giant
sloth, Mylodon, and the peculiar horse, Onohippidium.
These remains seem to belong to survivors from the last
submergence of this strangely mobile land-surface, and
it is not improbable that some individuals of this ' ex-
tinct ' fauna are still living in Patagonia. The region is
still unexplored and those who set out to examine it have,
by some strange fatality, hitherto failed to carry out
the professed purpose of their expeditions.

I cannot quit this immense field of gathered fact and
growing generalisation without alluding to the study of
animal embryology and the germ-layer theory, which
has to some extent been superseded by the study of
embryonic cell-lineage, so well pursued by some Amer-
ican microscopists. The great generalisation of the
study of the germ-layers and their formation seems to
be now firmly established — namely, that the earliest
multicellular animals were possessed of one structural
cavity, the enteron, surrounded by a double layer of
cells, the ectoderm and endoderm. These Enter ocala
or Ccelentera gave rise to forms having a second great
body-cavity, the crelom, which originated not as a split
between the two layers, as was supposed twenty-five years
ago by Haeckel and Gegenbaur and their pupils, but by
a pouching of the enteron to form one or more cavities
in which the reproductive cells should develop — pouch-
ings which became nipped off from the cavity of their

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 113

origin, and formed thus the independent ccelom. The
animals so provided are the Calomoccela (as opposed
to the Enteroc&la), and comprise all animals above the
polyps, jelly-fish, corals, and sea-anemones. It has been
established in these twenty-five years that the ccelom is
a definite structural unit of the higher groups, and that
outgrowths from it to the exterior (ccelomoducts) form
the genital passages, and may become renal excretory
organs also. The vascular system has not, as it was
formerly supposed to have, any connection of origin with
the ccelom, but is independent of it, in origin and de-
velopment, as also are the primitive and superficial renal
tubes known as nephridia. These general statements
seem to me to cover the most important advance in the
general morphology of animals which we owe to embryo-
logical research in the past quarter of a century.1

Before leaving the subject of animal morphology I
must apologise for my inability to give space and time
to a consideration of the growing and important science
of anthropology, which ranges from the history of human
institutions and language to the earliest prehistoric bones
and implements. Let me therefore note here the dis-
covery of the cranial dome of Pithecanthropus in a river
gravel in Java — undoubtedly the most ape-like of human
remains, and of great age (see figs, i and 2) ; and, further,
the Eoliths of Prestwich (see figs. 3 and 4), in the human
authorship of which I am inclined to believe, though I
should be sorry to say the same of all the broken flints
to which the name ' Eolith ' has been applied. The
systematic investigation and record of savage races have
taken on a new and scientific character. Such work as

1 See the introduction to Part II. of a Treatise on Zoology. Edited
by E. Ray Lankester (London : A. & C. Black).

I

THE KINGDOM OF MAN

Baldwin Spencer's and Haddon's in Australasia furnish
examples of what is being done in this way.

Physiology of Plants and Animals. — Since I have not
space to do more than pick out the most important
advances in each subject for brief mention, I must signalize
in regard to the physiology of plants the better under-
standing of the function of leaf-green or chlorophyll due

Bacillus radicola, the para-
site which infests the roots of
leguminous plants and causes
the growth of nodules whilst
assfsting the plant in the
assimilation of nitrogen : (a)
Nodule of the roots of the
common Lupine, natural size ;
(h) longitudinal section through
a Lupine root and nodule ;
(c) a single cell from a Lupine
nodule showing the bacteria
or bacilli, as black particles in
the protoplasm, magnified
600 diameters ; (d) bacilli from
the root nodule of the Lupine ;
(e) triangular forms of the
bacillus from the root nodules
of the Vetch ; (/) oval forms
from the root nodules of the
Lupine; (def)are magnified
1,500 diameters.

FIG. 32.

to Pringsheim and to the Russian Timiriaseff, the new
facts as to the activity of stomata in transpiration dis-
covered by Horace Brown, and the fixation of free
nitrogen by living organisms in the soil and by or-
ganisms (Bacillus radicola) parasitic in the rootlets of
leguminous plants (see fig. 32), which thus benefit by a
supply of nitrogenous compounds which they can
assimilate.

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 115

Great progress in the knowledge of the chemistry of
the living cells or protoplasm of both plants and animals
has been made by the discovery of the fact that ferments
or enzymes are not only secreted externally by cells,
but exist active and preformed inside cells. Biichner's
final conquest of the secret of the yeast-cell by heroic
mechanical methods — the actual grinding to powder of
these already very minute bodies — first established this,
and now successive discoveries of intracellular ferments
have led to the conclusion that it is probable that the
cell respires by means of a respiratory 'oxydase,' builds
up new compounds and destroys existing ones, contracts
and accomplishes its own internal life by ferments. Life
thus (from the chemical point of view) becomes a chain
of ferment actions. Another most significant advance in
animal physiology has been the sequel (as it were) of
Bernard's discovery of the formation of glycogen in the
liver, a substance not to be excreted, but to be taken
up by the blood and lymph, and in many ways more
important than the more obvious formation of bile which
is thrown out of the gland into the alimentary canal.
It has been discovered that many glands, such as the
kidney and pancreas and the ductless glands, the supra-
renals, thyroid, and others, secrete indispensable pro-
ducts into the blood and lymph. Hence myxcedema,
exophthalmic goitre, Addison's disease, and other dis-
orders have been traced to a deficiency or excess of
internal secretions from glands formerly regarded as in-
teresting but unimportant vestigial structures. From
these glands have in consequence been extracted re-
markable substances on which their peculiar activity
depends. From the suprarenals a substance has been
extracted which causes activity of all those structures
which the sympathetic nerve-system can excite to action :

i 2

u6

THE KINGDOM OF MAN

the thyroid yields a substance which influences the
growth of the skin, hair, bones, &c. ; the pituitary gland,
an extract which is a specific urinary stimulant. Quite
lately the mammalian ovary has been shown by Starling
to yield a secretion which influences the state of nutri-
tion of the uterus and mammae. A great deal more
might be said here on topics such as these — topics of
almost infinite importance ; but the fact is that the
mere enumeration of the most important lines of pro-
gress in any one science would occupy many pages.

Nerve-physiology has made immensely important ad-
vances. There is
now good evidence
that all excitation
of one group of
nerve-centres is ac-
companied by the
concurrent inhibition
of a whole series of
groups of other cen-
tres, whose activity
might interfere with
that of the group
excited to action.
In a simple reflex
flexure of the knee
the motor-neurones to the flexor muscles are excited,
but concurrently the motor-neurones to the extensor
muscles are thrown into a state of inhibition, and so
equally with all the varied excitations of the nervous
system controlling the movements and activities of the
entire body.

The discovery of the continuity of the protoplasm
through the walls of the vegetable cells by means of con-

FIG. 33.

The continuity of the protoplasm of neigh-
bouring vegetable cells, by means of threads
which perforate the cell- walls. Drawing
(after Gardiner) of cells from the pulvinus of
RoUnia.

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE

necting canals and threads (see fig. 33) is one of the most
startling facts discovered in connection with plant-struc-
ture, since it was held twenty years ago that a fundamental
distinction between animal and vegetable structure con-
sisted in the boxing-up or encasement of each vegetable
cell-unit in a case of cellulose, whereas animal cells were
not so imprisoned, but freely communicated with one
another. It perhaps is on this account the less sur-

Attraction-sphere enclosing two centrosomes.

Nucleus

Plasmosome or
true nucleolus.

Chromatin-

nttwork.

j Linin-network. \~j~

Karyosome or
net-knot.

Plastids lying in the
cytoplasm.

Vacuole.

Lifeless bodies (meta-
plasm) suspended in,
the cytoplasmic reticu-
luuu

FIG. 34.

Diagrammatic representation of the structures present in a typical cell
(after Wilson). Note the two centrosomes, sometimes single.

prising that lately something like sense-organs have been
discovered on the roots, stems, and leaves of plants, which,
like the otocysts of some animals, appear to be really
' statocytes,' and to exert a varying pressure according to
the relations of these parts of the plant to gravity. There
is apparently something resembling a perception of the

n8 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

incidence of gravity in plants which reacts on irritable
tissues, and is the explanation of the phenomena of
geotropism. These results have grown out of the
observations of Charles Darwin, followed by those of
F. Darwin, Haberlandt, and Nemec.

A few words must be said here as to the progress of
our knowledge of cell-substance, and what used to be
called the protoplasm question. We do not now regard
protoplasm as a chemical expression, but, in accordance
with von Mohl's original use of the, word, as a structure
which holds in its meshes many and very varied chemi-
cal bodies of great complexity. Within these twenty-
five years the ' centrosome ' of the cell-protoplasm has
been discovered (see fig. 34), and a great deal has been
learnt as to the structure of the nucleus and its remark-
able stain-taking bands, the chromosomes. We now
know that these bands are of definite fixed number,
varying in different species of plants and animals, and
that they are halved in number in the reproductive
elements — the spermatozoid and the ovum — so that on
union of these two to form the fertilized ovum (the
parent cell of all the tissues), the proper specific number
is attained (see figs. 35 and 36). It has been pretty
•clearly made out by cutting up large living cells —
^unicellular animals — that the body of the cell alone,
without the nucleus, can do very little but move and
maintain for a time its chemical status. But it is the
nucleus which directs and determines all definite growth,
movement, secretion, and reproduction. The simple pro-
toplasm, deprived of its nucleus, cannot form a new
nucleus — in fact, can do very little but exhibit irritability.
I am inclined to agree with those who hold that there
is not sufficient evidence that any organism exists at the
present time which has not both protoplasm and nucleus

FIG. 35. — THE NUMBER OF THE CHROMOSOMES : (a) Cell of the asexual
generation of the cryptogam 'Pellia epiphylla : the nucleus is about to divide,
a polar ray-formation is present at each end of the spindle-shaped nucleus,
the chromosomes have divided into two horizontal groups each of sixteen
pieces : sixteen is the number of the chromosomes of the ordinary tissue
cells of Pellia. (b) Cell of the sexual generation of the same plant (Pellia)
in the same phase of division, but with the reduced number of chromosomes
— namely, eight in each half of the dividing nucleus. The completed cells
of the sexual generation have only eight chromosomes, (c) Somatic or
tissue cell of Salamander showing twenty-four V-shaped chromosomes,
each of which is becoming longitudinally split as a preliminary to division,
(a) Sperm-mother-cell from testis of Salamander, showing the reduced
number of chromosomes of the sexual cells — namely, twelve; each is split
longitudinally. (From original drawings by Prof. Farmer and Mr. Moore.)

120

THE KINGDOM OF MAN

— in fact, that the simplest form of life at present exist-
ing is a highly complicated structure — a nucleated cell.
That does not imply that simpler forms of living matter
have not preceded those which we know. We must
assume that something more simple and homogeneous
than the cell, with its differentiated cell-body or proto-
plasm, and its cell kernel or nucleus, has at one time
existed. But the various supposed instances of the sur-
vival to the present day of such simple living things —
described by Haeckel and others — have one by one yielded

to improved methods of
microscopic examination and
proved to be differentiated
into nuclear and extra-nuclear
substance.

The question of ' spon-
taneous generation ' cannot
be said to have been seriously
revived within these twenty-
five years. Our greater know-
ledge of minute forms of life,
and the conditions under
which they can survive, as
well as our improved micro-
scopes and methods of experi-
ment and observation, have made an end of the argu-
ments and instances of supposed abiogenesis. The
accounts which have been published of 'radiobes,' minute
bodies arising in fluids of organic origin when radium
salts have been allowed to mix in minute quantities with
such fluids, are wanting in precision and detail, but the
microscopic particles which appear in the circumstances
described seem to be of a nature identical with the minute
bodies well known to microscopists and recognised as

FIG. 36.

Further stage in the division of
the sexual cell drawn in Fig. 35 (e),
showing the twelve chromosomes
of the two nuclei of the sperm-
cells resulting from the division
(twelve instead of twenty-four}.

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 121

crystals modified by a colloid medium. They have been
described by Rainey, Harting, and Ord, on different
occasions, many years ago. They are not devoid of
interest, but cannot be considered as having any new
bearing on the origin of living matter.

Psychology. — I have given a special heading to this
subject because its emergence as a definite line of experi-
mental research seems to me one of the most important
features in the progress of science in the past quarter of a
century. Thirty-five years ago we were all delighted by
Fechner's psycho-physical law, and at Leipzig I, with
others of my day, studied it experimentally in the physio-
logical laboratory of that great teacher, Carl Ludwig.
The physiological methods of measurement (which are
the physical ones) have been more and more widely, and
with guiding intelligence and ingenuity, applied since
those days to the study of the activities of the complex
organs of the nervous system which are concerned with
' mind ' or psychic phenomena. Whilst some enthusiasts
have been eagerly collecting ghost stories and records of
human illusion and fancy, the serious experimental in-
vestigation of the human mind, and its forerunner the
animal mind, has been quietly but steadily proceeding in
truly scientific channels. The science is still in an early
phase — that of the collection of accurate observations
and measurements — awaiting the development of great
guiding hypotheses and theories. But much has been
done, and it is a matter of gratification to Oxford men
that through the liberality of the distinguished electrician,
Mr. Henry Wilde, F.R.S., a lectureship of Experimental
Psychology has been founded in the University of Oxford,
where the older studies of Mental and Moral Philosophy,
Logic and Metaphysics have so strong a hold, and have
so well prepared the ground for the new experimental

122 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

development. The German investigators W. Wundt,
G. E. Miiller, C. Stumpf, Ebbinghaus, and Munsterberg
have been prominent in introducing laboratory methods,
and have determined such matters as the elementary laws
of association and memory, and the perceptions of musical
tones and their relations. The work of Goldschneider
on ' the muscular sense,' of von Frey on the cutaneous
sensations, are further examples of what is being done.

The difficult and extremely important line of investi-
gation, first scientifically treated by Braid under the name
* Hypnotism,' has been greatly developed by the French
school, especially by Charcot. The experimental investi-
gation of 'suggestion,' and the pathology of dual con-
sciousness and such exceptional conditions of the mind,
has been greatly advanced by French observers.

The older work of Ferrier and Hitzig on the functions
of the parts of the brain has been carried further by
Goltz and Munk in Germany, and by Schafer, Horsle}',
and Sherrington in England.

The most important general advance seems to be the
recognition that the mind of the human adult is a social
product; that it can only be understood in relation with
the special environment in which it develops, and with
which it is in perpetual interaction. Professor Baldwin,
of Princeton, has done important work on this subject.
Closely allied is the study of what is called ' the
psychology of groups,' the laws of mental action of the
individual as modified by his membership of some form
of society. French authors have done valuable work
here.

These two developments of psychology are destined
to provide the indispensable psychological basis for
Social Science, and for the anthropological investigation
of mental phenomena.

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 123

Hereafter, the well-ascertained laws of experimental
psychology will undoubtedly furnish the necessary scien-
tific basis of the art of education, and psychology will
hold the same relation to that art as physiology does to
the art of medicine and hygiene.

There can be little doubt, moreover, of the valuable
interaction of the study of physical psychology and the
theories of the origin of structural character by natural
selection. The relation of the human mind to the mind
of animals, and the gradual development of both, form
a subject full of rich stores of new material, yielding
conclusions of the highest importance, which has not
yet been satisfactorily approached.

I am glad to be able to give wider publicity here to
some conclusions which I communicated to the Jubilee
volume of the ' Societe de Biologic ' of Paris in 1899.
I there discussed the significance of the great increase in
the size of the cerebral hemispheres in recent, as com-
pared with Eocene Mammals (see fig. 5), and in Man as
compared with Apes, and came to the conclusion that * the
power of building up appropriate cerebral mechanism in
response to individual experience,' or what may be called
* educability,' is the quality which characterizes the larger
cerebrum, and is that which has led to its selection,
survival, and further increase in volume. The bearing of
this conception upon questions of fundamental importance
in what has been called genetic psychology is sketched as
follows :

' The character which we describe as " educability "
can be transmitted; it is a congenital character. But the
results of education can not be transmitted. In each
generation they have to be acquired afresh. With
increased " educability " they are more readily acquired
and a larger variety of them. On the other hand, the

i24 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

nerve-mechanisms of instinct are transmitted, and owe
their inferiority as compared with the results of education
to the very fact that they are not acquired by the indi-
vidual in relation to his particular needs, but have arisen
by selection of congenital variation in a long series of
preceding generations.'

' To a large extent the two series of brain-mechanisms,
the " instinctive " and the "individually acquired," are
in opposition to one another. Congenital brain-mechan-
isms may prevent the education of the brain and the
development of new mechanisms specially fitted to the
special conditions of life. To the educable animal the
less there is of specialised mechanism transmitted by
heredity, the better. The loss of instinct is what
permits and necessitates the education of the receptive
brain.'

' We are thus led to the view that it is hardly pos-
sible for a theory to be further from the truth than
that expressed by George H. Lewes and adopted by
George Romanes, namely, that instincts are due to
" lapsed " intelligence. The fact is that there is no
community between the mechanisms of instinct and
the mechanisms of intelligence, and that the latter are
later in the history of the development of the brain
than the former, and can only develop in proportion as
the former become feeble and defective.' 1

Darwinism. — Under the title ' Darwinism ' it is con-
venient to designate the various work of biologists
tending to establish, develop, or modify Mr. Darwin's
great theory of the origin of species. In looking back
over twenty-five years it seems to me that we must
say that the conclusions of Darwin as to the origin of

1 From the Jubilee volume of the Soc. de Biol. of Paris, 1899. Re-
printed in Nature, vol. Ixi., 1900, pp. 624, 625.

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 125

species by the survival of selected races in the struggle
for existence are more firmly established than ever.
And this because there have been many attempts to
gravely tamper with essential parts of the fabric
as he left it, and even to substitute conceptions for
those which he endeavoured to establish, at variance
with his conclusions. These attempts must, I think,
be considered as having failed. A great deal of valuable
work has been done in consequence; for honest criti-
cism, based on observation and experiment, leads to
further investigation, and is the legitimate and natural
mode of increase of scientific knowledge. Amongst the
attempts to seriously modify Darwin's doctrine may be
cited that to assign a great and leading importance to
Lamarck's theory as to the transmission by inheritance
of newly ' acquired ' characters, due chiefly to American
palaeontologists and to the venerated defender of such
views, who has now closed his long life of great work,
Mr. Herbert Spencer ; that to attribute leading import-
ance to the action of physiological congruity and incon-
gruity in selective breeding, which was put forward by
another able writer and naturalist who has now passed
from among us, Dr. George Romanes ; further, the views of
de Vries as to the discontinuity in the origin of new
species, supported by the valuable work of Mr. Bateson
on discontinuous variation ; and lastly, the attempt to
assign a great and general importance to the facts as-
certained many years ago by the Abbe Mendel as to
the cross-breeding of varieties and the frequent produc-
tion (in regard to certain characters in certain cases)
of pure strains rather than of breeds combining the
characters of both parents. On the other hand we
have the splendid series of observations and writings
of August Weismann, who has, in the opinion of the

126 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

majority of those who study this subject, rendered the
Lamarckian theory of the origin and transmission of
new characters altogether untenable, and has, besides,
furnished a most instructive, if not finally conclusive,
theory or mechanical scheme of the phenomena of
Heredity in his book ' The Germ-plasm.' Professor
Karl Pearson and the late Professor Weldon — the latter
so early in life and so recently lost to us — have, with
the finest courage and enthusiasm in the face of an
enormous and difficult task, determined to bring the
facts of variation and heredity into the solid form of
statistical statement, and have organised, and largely
advanced in, this branch of investigation which they
have termed * Biometrics.' Many naturalists through-
out the world have made it the main object of their
collecting and breeding of insects, birds, and plants, to
test Darwin's generalisations and to expand the work
of Wallace in the same direction. A delightful fact
in this survey is that we find Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace
(who fifty years ago conceived the same theory as that
more fully stated by Darwin) actively working and
publishing some of the most convincing and valuable
works on Darwinism. He is still alive and not merely
well, but pursuing his work with vigour and ability.
It was chiefly through his researches on insects in
South America and the Malay Islands that Mr. Wallace
was led to the Darwinian theory; and there is no
doubt that, the study of insects, especially of butter-
flies, is still one of the most prolific fields in which
new facts can be gathered in support of Darwin and
new views on the subject tested. Prominent amongst
naturalists in this line of research has been and is
Edward Poulton of Oxford, who has handed on to the
study of entomology throughout the world the impetus

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 127

of the Darwinian theory. I must here also name a writer
who, though unknown in our laboratories and museums,
seems to me to have rendered very valuable service in
later years to the testing of Darwin's doctrines and to
the bringing of a great class of organic phenomena
within the cognisance of those naturalists who are
especially occupied with the problems of Variation and
Heredity. I mean Dr. Archdall Reid, who has with
keen logic made use of the immense accumulation of
material which is in the hands of medical men, and
has pointed out the urgent importance of increased
use by Darwinian investigators of the facts as to the
variation and heredity of that unique animal, man,
unique in his abundance, his reproductive activity, and
his power of assisting his investigator by his own re-
cord. There are more observations about the variation
and heredity of man and the conditions attendant upon
individual instances than with regard to any other
animal. Medical men need only to grasp clearly the
questions at present under discussion in order to be
able to furnish with ease data absolutely invaluable in
quantity and quality. Dr. Archdall Reid has in two
original books full of insight and new suggestions, the
' Present Evolution of Man ' and ' Principles of Heredity/
shown a new path for investigators to follow.

The attempt to resuscitate Lamarck's views on the
inheritance of acquired 1 characters has been met not
only by the demand for the production of experimental

1 I use the term ' acquired ' without prejudice in the sense given to
that word by Lamarck himself. It is of primary importance that those
who follow this controversy should clearly understand what Lamarck
pointed to by this word ' acquired.' Utter confusion and absurdity has
resulted from a misunderstanding on this subject by some writers who
deliberately call newly appearing congenital characters ' acquired ' or
' acquisitions.'

128 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

proof that such inheritance takes place, which has never
been produced, but on Weismann's part by a demon-
stration that the reproductive cells of organisms are
developed and set aside from the rest of the tissues at
so early a period that it is extremely improbable that
changes brought about in those other tissues by unac-
customed incident forces can be communicated to the
germ-cells so as to make their appearance in the off-
spring by heredity. Apart from this, I have drawn
attention to the fact that Lamarck's first and second
laws (as he terms them) of heredity are contradictory
the one of the other, arid therefore may be dismissed.
In 1894 I wrote :

' Normal conditions of environment have for many
thousands of generations moulded the individuals of a
given species of organism, and determined as each
individual developed and grew "responsive" quantities
in its parts (characters) : yet, as Lamarck tells us, and as
we know, there is in every individual born a potentiality
which has not been extinguished. Change the normal
conditions of the species in the case of a young
individual taken to-day from the site where for thousands
of generations its ancestors have responded in a perfectly
defined way to the normal and defined conditions of
environment ; reduce the daily or the seasonal amount
of solar radiation to which the individual is exposed ; or
remove the aqueous vapour from the atmosphere; or
alter the chemical composition of the pabulum acces-
sible ; or force the individual to previously unaccustomed
muscular effort or to new pressures and strains ; and
(as Lamarck bids us observe), in spite of all the long-
continued response to the earlier normal specific condi-
tions, the innate congenital potentiality shows itself.
The individual under the new quantities of environing

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 129

agencies shows new responsive quantities in those parts
of its structure concerned, new or acquired characters.

* So far, so good. What Lamarck next asks us to
accept, as his " second law," seems not only to lack the
support of experimental proof, but to be inconsistent with
what has just preceded it. The new character which is
ex hypothesi, as was the old character (length, breadth,
weight of a part) which it has replaced — a response to
environment, a particular moulding or manipulation by
incident forces of the potential congenital quality of
the race — is, according to Lamarck, all of a sudden
raised to extraordinary powers. The new or freshly
acquired character is declared by Lamarck and his
adherents to be capable of transmission by generation ;
that is to say, it alters the potential character of the
species. It is no longer a merely responsive or reactive
character, determined quantitatively by quantitative
conditions of the environment, but becomes fixed and
incorporated in the potential of the race, so as to persist
when other quantitative external conditions are substi-
tuted for those which originally determined it. In
opposition to Lamarck, one must urge, in the first place,
that this thing has never been shown experimentally to
occur ; and in the second place, that there is no ground
for holding its occurrence to be probable, but, on the
contrary, strong reason for holding it to be improbable.
Since the old character (length, breadth, weight) had not
become fixed and congenital after many thousands of
successive generations of individuals had developed it in
response to environment, but gave place to a new
character when new conditions operated on an individual
(Lamarck's first law), why should we suppose that the
new character is likely to become fixed after a much
shorter time of responsive existence, or to escape the

K

i^o THE KINGDOM OF MAN

operation of the first law ? Clearly there is no reason
(so far as Lamarck's statement goes) for any such
supposition, and the two so-called laws of Lamarck are
at variance with one another.'

In its most condensed form my argument has been
stated thus by Professor Poulton : Lamarck's ' first law
assumes that a past history of indefinite duration is
powerless to create a bias by which the present can be
controlled ; while the second assumes that the brief
history of the present can readily raise a bias to control
the future.'1

An important light is thrown on some facts which
seem at first sight to favour the Lamarckian hypothesis
by the consideration that, though an ' acquired '
character is not transmitted to offspring as the conse-
quence of the action of external agencies determining the
* acquirement,' yet the tendency to react exhibited by
the parent is transmitted, and if the tendency is excep-
tionally great a false suggestion of a Lamarckian
inheritance can readily result. This inheritance of
' variation in tendencies to react ' has a wide application,
and has led me to coin the word ' educability ' as
mentioned in the section of this address on Psychology.

The principle of physiological selection advocated by
Dr. Romanes does not seem to have caused much
discussion, and has been unduly neglected by subse-
quent writers. It was ingenious, and was based on
some interesting observations, but has failed to gain
support.

The observations of de Vries — showing that in

cultivated varieties of plants a new form will sometimes

assert itself suddenly and attain a certain period of

dominance, though not having been gradually brought

1 Nature, vol. li., 1894, p. 127.

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 131

into existence by a slow process of selection — have been
considered by him, and by a good many other naturalists,
as indicating the way in which new species arise in
Nature. The suggestion is a valuable one if not very
novel, but a great deal of observation will have to be
made before it can be admitted as really having a wide
bearing upon the origin of species. The same is true of
those interesting observations which were first made by
Mendel, and have been resuscitated and extended with
great labour and ingenuity by recent workers, especially
in this country by Bateson and his pupils. If it should
prove to be true that varieties when crossed do not, in
the course of eventual inter-breeding, produce interme-
diate forms as hybrids, but that characters are either
dominant or recessive, and that breeds result having
pure unmixed characters — we should, in proportion as the
Mendelian law is shown to apply to all tissues and organs
and to a majority of organisms, have before us a
very important and determining principle in all that
relates to heredity and variation. It remains, however,
to be shown how far the Mendelian phenomenon is
general. And it is, of course, admitted on all sides
that, even were the Mendelian phenomenon general and
raised to the rank of a law of heredity, it would not
be subversive of Mr. Darwin's generalisations, but pro-
bably tend to the more ready application of them to
the explanation of many difficult cases of the structure
and distribution of organisms.

Two general principles which Mr. Darwin fully
recognised appear to me to deserve more consideration
and more general application to the history of species
than he had time to give to them, or than his followers
have accorded to them. The first is the great principle
of ' correlation of variation,' from which it follows that,

K 2

132 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

whilst natural selection may be favouring some small
and obscure change in an unseen group of cells — such
as digestive, pigmentary or nervous cells, and that change
a change of selective value — there may be, indeed often
is, as we know, a correlated or accompanying change
in a physiologically related part of far greater magnitude
and prominence to the eye of the human onlooker. This
accompanying or correlated character has no selective
value, is not an adaptation — is, in fact, a necessary but
useless by-product. A list of a few cases of this kind
was given by Darwin, but it is most desirable that more
should be established. For they enable us to understand
how it is that specific characters, those seen and noted
on the surface by systematists, are not in most cases
adaptations of selective value. They also open a wide
vista of incipient and useless developments which may
suddenly, in their turn, be seized upon by ever-watchful
natural selection and raised to a high pitch of growth
and function.

The second, somewhat but by no means altogether
neglected, principle is that a good deal of the important
variation in both plants and animals is not the variation
of a minute part or confined to one organ, but has
really an inner physiological basis, and may be a varia-
tion of a whole organic system or of a whole tissue
expressing itself at several points and in several shapes.
In fact, we should perhaps more generally conceive of
variation as not so much the accomplishment and pre-
sentation of one little mark or difference in weight,
length, or colour, as the expression of a tendency to vary
in a given tissue or organ in a particular way. Thus
we are prepared for the rapid extension and dominance
of the variation if once it is favoured by selective
breeding. It seems to me that such cases as the com-

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 133

plete disappearance of scales from the integument of
some osseous fishes, or the possible retention of three
or four scales out of some hundreds present in nearly
allied forms, favour this mode of conceiving of varia-
tion. So also does the marked tendency to produce
membranous expansions of the integument in the bats,
not only between the digits and from the axilla, but
from the ears and different regions of the face. Of
course, the alternative hairy or smooth condition of the
integuments both in plants and animals is a familiar
instance in which a tendency extending over a large
area is recognised as that which constitutes the variation.
In smooth or hairy varieties we do not postulate an
individual development of hairs subjected one by one to
selection and survival or repression.

Disease. — The study of the physiology of unhealthy,
injured, or diseased organisms is called pathology. It
necessarily has an immense area of observation and is
of transcending interest to mankind who do not accept
their diseases unresistingly and die as animals do, so
purifying their race, but incessantly combat and fight
disease, producing new and terrible forms of it,
by their wilful interference with the earlier rule of
Nature.

Our knowledge of disease has been enormously
advanced in the last quarter of a century, and in an
important degree our power of arresting it, by two
great lines of study going on side by side and originated,
not by medical men nor physiologists in the narrow
technical sense, but by naturalists, a botanist, and a
zoologist. Ferdinand Cohn, Professor of Botany in
Breslau, by his own researches and by personal train-
ing in his laboratory, gave to Robert Koch the start on
his distinguished career as a bacteriologist. It is to

134 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

Metschnikoff the zoologist and embryologist that we
owe the doctrine of phagocytosis and the consequent
theory of immunity now so widely accepted.

We must not forget that in this same period much
of the immortal work of Pasteur on hydrophobia, of
Behring and Roux on diphtheria, and of Ehrlich and
many others to whom the eternal gratitude of mankind
is due, has been going on. It is only some fifteen years
since Calmette showed that if cobra poison were intro-
duced into the blood of a horse in less quantity than
would cause death, the horse would tolerate with little
disturbance after ten days a full dose, and then day
after day an increasing dose, until the horse without
any inconvenience received an injection of cobra poison
large enough to kill thirty horses of its size. Some of
the horse's blood being now withdrawn was found to
contain a very active antidote to cobra poison — what is
called an antitoxin. The procedure in the preparation of
the antitoxin is practically the same as that previously
adopted by Behring in the preparation of the antitoxin
of diphtheria poison. Animals treated with injections of
these antitoxins are immune to the poison itself when
subsequently injected with it, or, if already suffering
from the poison (as, for instance, by snake-bite), are
readily shown by experiment to be rapidly cured by
the injection of the appropriate antitoxin. This is, as
all will admit, an intensely interesting bit of biology.
The explanation of the formation of the antitoxin in
the blood and its mode of antagonising the poison is not
easy. It seems that the antitoxin is undoubtedly formed
from the corresponding toxin or poison, and that the
antagonism can be best understood as a chemical
reaction by which the complex molecule of the poison
is upset, or effectively modified.

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 135

The remarkable development of Metschnikoff's doc-
trine of phagocytosis during the past quarter of a
century is certainly one of the characteristic features
of the activity of biological science in that period.
At first ridiculed as * Metschnikomsm,' it has now won
the support of its former adversaries.

For a long time the ideal of hygienists has been to
preserve man from all contact with the germs of infection,
to destroy them and destroy the animals conveying them,
such as rats, mosquitoes, and other flies. But it has
now been borne in upon us that, useful as such attempts
are, and great as is the improvement in human condi-
tions which can thus be effected, yet we cannot hope for
any really complete or satisfactory realisation of the ideal
of escape from contact with infective germs. The task
is beyond human powers. The conviction has now been
arrived at that, whilst we must take every precaution
to diminish infection, yet our ultimate safety must
come from within — namely, from the activity, the
trained, stimulated, and carefully guarded activity, of
those wonderful colourless amoeba-like corpuscles whose
use was so long unrecognized, but has now been made
clear by the patiently continued experiments and argu-
ments of Metschnikoff, who has named them * phagocytes.'
The doctrine of the activity and immense importance of
these corpuscles of the living body which form part of
the all-pervading connective tissues and float also in the
blood, is in its nature and inception opposed to what are
called the ' humoral ' and ' vitalistic ' theories of resis-
tance to infection. Of this kind were the beliefs that
the liquids of the living body have an inherent and some-
what vague power of resisting infective germs, and even
that the mere living quality of the tissues was in some un-
known way antagonistic to foreign intrusive disease-germs.

I36

THE KINGDOM OF MAN

The first eighteen years of Metschnikoff s career, after
his undergraduate course, were devoted to zoological and
embryological investigations. He discovered many im-
portant facts, such as the alternation of generations in the
parasitic worm of the frog's lung — Ascaris nigrovenosa —
and the history of the growth from the egg of sponges
and medusae. In these latter researches he came into
contact with the wonderfully active cells, or living cor-
puscles, which in many low forms of life can be seen by
transparency in the living animal. He saw that these
corpuscles (as was indeed already known) resemble the

FIG. 37.

FIG. 38.

FIG. 39.

Fig. 37- — Phagocyte or colourless corpuscle of a guinea-pig in the act of
engulphing two Spirilla or parasitic vegetable microbes of a spiral shape.
Fig. 38. — The same half an hour later, one of the Spirilla is nearly com-
pletely engulphed. Fig. 39. — The same ten minutes later still, one of the
Spirilla is completely absorbed into the substance (protoplasm) of the
phagocyte. (From Metschnikoff's book, " Immunity," kindly supplied by
the Cambridge University Press.)

well-known amoeba, and can take into their soft sub-
stance (protoplasm) at all parts of their surface any
minute particles and digest them, thus destroying them.
In a transparent water-flea Metschnikoff saw these amoeba-
like, colourless, floating blood-corpuscles swallowing and
digesting the spores of a parasitic fungus which had
attacked the water-fleas and was causing their death.

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 137

He came to the conclusion that this is the chief, if not
the whole, value of these corpuscles in higher as well as
lower animals, in all of which they are very abundant.

FIG. 40.

FIG. 41.

FIG. 42.

Fig. 40. — Phagocyte of a guinea-pig in the course of engulphing a very
mobile undulating spirillum. Fig. 41.— The same, forty minutes later.
Fig. 42. — The same taken half an hour after Fig. 41. (From Metschnikoff s
" Immunity.")

It was known that when a wound bringing in foreign
matter is inflicted on a vertebrate animal the blood-vessels
became gorged in the neighbourhood and the colourless
corpuscles escape through the walls of the vessels in
crowds. Their business in so doing, Metschnikoff showed,

FIG. 43.

A large kind of phagocyte of the guinea-pig,
killed and stained for microscopic examination.
It shows the large spherical nucleus and three
specimens of the spirillum of relapsing-fever
which have been engulphed, and are lying
within its protoplasm. They would have been
slowly digested — that is to say, dissolved by the
digestive juices within the phagocyte. (From
Metschnikoft's "Immunity.")

is to eat up the foreign matter, and also to eat up and
remove the dead, wounded tissue. He therefore called
these white or colourless corpuscles 'phagocytes,' the

138 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

eater-cells, and in his beautiful book on Inflammation,
published twenty years ago, proved <he extreme impor-
tance of their activity. At the same time he had shown
that they eat up intrusive bacteria and other germs (see
figs. 37 to 43) ; and his work for the last twenty years has
mainly consisted in demonstrating that they are the chief,
and probably the only, agents at work in either ridding
the human body of an attack of disease-causing germs or
in warding off even the commencement of an attack, so
that the man or animal in which they are fully efficient
is 'immune' — that is to say, cannot be effectively attacked
by disease-germs.

Disease-germs, bacteria, or protozoa produce poisons
which sometimes are too much for the phagocytes, poison-
ing them and so getting the upper hand. But, as Metsch-
nikoff showed, the training of the phagocytes by weak
doses of the poison of the disease-germ, or by weakened
cultures of the disease-germ itself, brings about a power
of resistance in the phagocytes to the germ's poison, and
thus makes them capable of attacking the germs and
keeping them at bay. Hence the value of inoculations.

The discussion and experiments arising from Metschni-
koff's demonstrations have led to the discovery of the
production by the phagocytes of certain exudations from
their substance which have a most important effect in
weakening the resistance of the intrusive bacteria and
rendering them easy prey for the phagocyte. These are
called ' sensitisers,' and have been largely studied. They
may be introduced artificially into the blood and tissues so
as to facilitate the work of the phagocytes, and no doubt
it is a valuable remedial measure to make use of such
sensitisers as a treatment. Dr. Wright considers that
such sensitisers are formed in the blood and tissues inde-
pendently of the phagocytes, and has called them ' opso-

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 139

nins,' under which name he has made most valuable
application of the method of injecting them into the
body so as to facilitate the work of the phagocytes in
devouring the hostile bacteria of various diseases. Each
kind of disease-producing microbe has its own sensitiser
or opsonin ; hence there has been much careful research
and experiment required in order to bring the discovery
into practical use. Metschnikoff himself holds and quotes
experiments to show that the ' opsonins ' are actually
produced by the phagocytes themselves. That this should
be so is in accordance with some striking zoological facts,
as I pointed out nearly twenty years ago.1 For the lowest
multicellular animals provided with a digestive sac or gut,
such as the polyps, have that sac lined by digestive cells
which have the same amoeboid character as ' phagocytes,'
and actually digest to a large extent by swallowing or
taking into their individual protoplasm raw particles of
food. Such particles are enclosed in a temporary cavity,
or vacuole, into which the cell-protoplasm secretes diges-
tive ferment and other chemical agents. Now there is
no doubt that such digestive vacuoles may burst and so
pour out into the polyp's stomach a digestive juice which
will act on food particles outside the substance of the
cells, and thus by the substitution of this process of out-
pouring of the secretion for that of ingestion of food
particles into the cells we get the usual form of diges-
tion by juices secreted into a digestive cavity. Now
this being certainly the case in regard to the history of
the original phagocytes lining the polyp's gut, it does
not seem at all unlikely, but on the contrary in a high
degree probable, that the phagocytes of the blood and
tissues should behave in the same way and pour out

1 In a review of Metschnikoffs 'Legons sur 1'Inflammation ' in
Nature, 1899.

i4o THE KINGDOM OF MAN

sensitisers and opsonins to paralyse, and prepare their
bacterial food. And the experiments of Metschnikoff's
pupils and followers show that this is undoubtedly the
case. Whether there is any great variety of and differ-
ence between ' sensitisers ' and ' opsonins ' is a matter
which is still the subject of active experiment. Metschni-
koffs conclusion, as recently stated in regard to the whole
progress of this subject, is that the phagocytes in our
bodies should be stimulated in their activity in order
successfully to fight the germs of infection. Alcohol,
opium, and even quinine, hinder the phagocytic action ;
they should therefore be entirely eschewed or used only
with great caution where their other and valuable pro-
perties are urgently needed. It appears that the injection
of blood-serum into the tissues of animals causes an
increase in the number and activity of the phagocytes,
and thus an increase in their resistance towards patho-
genic germs. Thus Durham (who was a pioneer in his
observations on the curious phenomena of the ' agglu-
tination ' of blood corpuscles in relation to disease) was
led to suggest the injection of sera during surgical
operations, and experiments recently quoted by Metschni-
koff seem to show that the suggestion was well founded.
Both German and French surgeons have employed the
method with successful results, and the demonstration
that an immense number of microbes are thus taken up
and destroyed by the multiplication (due to their regular
increase by cell-division) of the phagocytes of the
injected patient. After years of opposition bravely
met in the pure scientific spirit of renewed experiment
and demonstration, Metschnikoff is at last able to say
that the foundation-stone of the hygiene of the tissues —
the thesis that our phagocytes are our arms of defence
against infective germs — has been generally accepted.

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 141

Another feature of the progress of our knowledge of
disease — as a scientific problem — is the recent recognition
that minute animal parasites of that low degree of uni-
cellular structure to which the name ' Protozoa ' is given,
are the causes of serious and ravaging diseases, and
that the minute algoid plants, the bacteria, are not alone
in possession of this field of activity. It was Laveran—
a French medical man — who, just about twenty-five
years ago, discovered the minute animal organism in
the red blood-corpuscles, which is the cause of malaria
(see fig. 44). Year by year ever since our knowledge of
this terrible little parasite has increased. We now know
many similar to, but not identical with it, living in the
blood of birds, reptiles, and frogs (see fig. 45).

It is the great merit of Major Ross, formerly of the
Indian Army Medical Staff, to have discovered, by most
patient and persevering experiment, that the malaria
parasite passes a part of its life in the spot-winged gnat
or mosquito (Anopheles), not, as he had at first supposed,
in the common gnat or mosquito (Culex), and that if
we can get rid of spot-winged mosquitoes or avoid their
attentions, or even only prevent them from sucking the
blood of malarial patients, we can lessen, or even abolish,
malaria.

This great discovery was followed by another as to
the production of the deadly ' Nagana ' horse and cattle
disease in South Africa by a screw-like, minute animal
parasite Trypanosoma Brucei (see fig. 46 B). The
Tsetze fly (see fig. 48 A, B), which was already known
in some way to produce this disease, was found
by Colonel David Bruce to do so by conveying by
its bite the Trypanosoma from wild big-game animals,
to the domesticated horses and cattle of the colonists.
The discovery of the parasite and its relation to the

VEb.

4^k

FIG. 44.

FIG. 44.

A diagram showing the life-history and migration of the Malaria
parasite, Laveyania M alarifc , as discovered by Laveran, Ross, and Grassi.
The stages above the dotted line take place in the blood of man. The
oblong-pointed parasite is seen entering the blood at n just below No. I.
The circles represent the red blood-discs of man. Schizogony means
multiplication by simple division or splitting, and it is seen in Nos. 6, 7, 8,
9, and 10. The stages below the dotted line are passed in the body of the
spot-winged gnats of the genus Anopheles. A peculiar crescent or sausage-
shaped condition is assumed by the parasite inside the red corpuscle No. VI.
These are found to be of two kinds, male and female, Nos. Vila and Vllb.
They are swallowed by the spot-winged gnat when it sucks the blood of an
infected man. Here in the gut of the gnat they become spherical ; the
male spheres produce spermatozoa No. Xa, which fuse with and fertilize
the female spheres or egg cells No. XI. An active worm-like form No. XIII
results, which pushes its way partly through the wall of the gnat's gut,
and is then nourished by the gnat's blood. It swells up, divides internally
again and again, and is enclosed in a firm transparent case or cyst, Nos. XIV
to XVIII. The cysts are far larger in proportion than is shown in the
diagram, and are visible to the naked eye. The final product of the
breaking up, which is called sporogony, is a vast number of needle-shaped
spores or young (called Exotospores, as opposed to the Enhaemospores,
which are formed in the human blood, as seen in Nos. 9 and 10, and serve
there to spread the infection among the red corpuscles). The needle-
shaped spores formed in the gnat's body accumulate in its salivary glands,
and pass out by the mouth of the gnat when it stabs a new human victim
who thus becomes infected, No. XIX.

Had the sausage-like phases Nos. Vila and Vllb been swallowed by a
common gnat or mosquito of the genus Culex they would have been
digested and destroyed. It is only in species of gnats of the kind known
as Anopheles that the parasite can undergo its sexual development and
subsequent process of the formation of cysts and needle-shaped exoto-
spores. (After Minchin in Part I. of Lankester's "Treatise on Zoology,"
published by A. and C. Black.)

i.

J-

k.
FIG. 45.

Lanhesterellaranarum (Lank.), the parasite of the red blood-corpuscles
of the edible Frog, described originally as Drepanidium ranarum by
Lankester in 1882, and previously without name in 1871. The large ovals
represent the red corpuscles of the frog; the dark central mass is the
nucleus, N. In A two spindle-shaped parasites are seen; in B one larger
parasite with nucleus n preparing to divide ; in c the parasite is V-shaped.
In D the parasite has become spherical, and is so in E also. In F the
spherical parasite has divided into a number of spores mz, with a central
residual body np. The figures G to N represent supposed stages in con-
jugation of small and large forms ; o is an encysted phase ; and P a
spore or sporozoite of the sexual generation similar to the needle-shaped
exotospores of Laverania. (See Fig. 44.) All the figures magnified
2,250 diameters. (After Hintze from Minchin's section on Sporozoa in
Lankester's "Treatise on Zoology.")

FIG. 46.

Various species of Trypanosoma from the blood of mammals, birds,
and reptiles. A. T. Lewisii, from the blood of rats; B. T. Brucii, the
parasite of the Nagana or Tsetze-fly disease, found in the blood of horses,
cattle, and big game ; C. T. gambiense, the parasite causing Sleeping
Sickness in man ; D. T. eqiiinum, which causes the mal de caderas in South
American horse ranches ; E. T. noctuce, from the blood of the little owl,
Athene noctua; F. T. avium, found in the blood of many birds; G. a
species found in the blood of Indian pigeons; H. T.ziemanni, a second
species from the blood of the little owl ; J. T. damonta, from the blood of
a tortoise; e.g., granules; v., vacuole; l.s., fold of the crest or undulating
membrane.

These figures are from Dr. Woodcock's article on the " Haemo-
flagellates " in the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, April and June,
1906. (See also the figures in the next chapter relating to Sleeping
Sickness.)

146 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

fly and the disease was as beautiful a piece of scientific
investigation as biologists have ever seen. A curious and
very important fact was discovered by Bruce — namely,
that the native big game (zebras, antelopes, and probably
buffaloes), are tolerant of the parasite. The Trypanosoma
grows and multiplies in their blood, but does not kill
them or even injure them. It is only the unaccustomed
introduced animals from Europe which are poisoned by
the chemical excreta of the Trypanosomes and die in
consequence. Hence the wild creatures — brought into
a condition of tolerance by natural selection and the
dying out of those susceptible to the poison — form a sort
of ' reservoir ' of deadly Trypanosomes for the Tsetze
flies to carry into the blood of new-comers. The same
phenomenon of ' reservoir-hosts ' (as I have elsewhere
called them) has since been observed in the case of
malaria ; the children of the native blacks in Africa
and in other malarious regions are tolerant of the malarial
parasite, as many as 80 per cent, of children under ten
being found to be infected, and yet not suffering from
the poison. This is not the same thing as the im-
munity which consists in repiihion or destruction of the
parasite.

The Trypanosomes have acquired a terrible notoriety
within the last four years, since another species, also
carried by a Tsetze fly of another species, has been dis-
covered by Castellani in cases of Sleeping Sickness in
Uganda, and demonstrated by Colonel Bruce to be the
cause of that awful disease.1 Over 200,000 natives of
Uganda have died from it within the last five years. It
is incurable, and, sad to relate, not only a certain number
of European employes have succumbed to it in tropical
Africa, but a brave young officer of the Army Medical
1 See the next chapter, devoted to this subject.

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 147

Corps, Lieutenant Tulloch, has died from the disease
acquired by him in the course of an investigation of this
disease and its possible cure, which he was carrying out,
in association with other men of science, on the Victoria
Nyanza Lake in Central Africa. Lieutenant Tulloch was
sent out to this investigation by the Royal Society of
London, and I will venture to ask my readers to join
that body in sympathy for his friends, and admiration for
him and the other courageous men who risk their lives in
the endeavour to arrest disease.

Trypanosomes are now being recognised in the most
diverse regions of the world as the cause of disease — new
horse diseases in South America, in North Africa, in the
Philippines and East India are all traced to peculiar
species of Trypanosome. Other allied forms are re-
sponsible for Delhi-sore, and certain peculiar Indian
fevers of man. A peculiar and ultra-minute parasite of
the blood cells causes Texas fever, and various African
fevers deadly to cattle. In all these cases, as also
in that of plague, the knowledge of the carrier of the
disease, often a tick or acarid — in that of plague the flea
of the rat — is extremely important, as well as the know-
ledge of reservoir-hosts when such exist.

The zoologist thus comes into closer touch than
ever with the profession of medicine, and the time has
arrived when the professional students of disease fully
admit that they must bring to their great and hopeful task
of abolishing the diseases of man the fullest aid from
every branch of biological science. I need not say howr
great is the contentment of those who have long worked
at apparently useless branches of science — such as are
the careful and elaborate distinction of every separate kind
of animal and the life-history and structure peculiar to
each — in the belief that all knowledge is good, to find that

L 2

148 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

the science they have cultivated has become suddenly
and urgently of the highest practical value.

I have not time to do more than mention here the
effort that is being made by combined international
research and co-operation to push further in our
knowledge of phthisis and of cancer, with a view to their
destruction. It is only since our last meeting at York
that the parasite of Phthisis or Tubercle has been
made known ; we may hope that it will not be long before
we have similar knowledge as to Cancer. Only eighteen
months have elapsed since Fritz Schaudinn discovered
the long-sought parasitic germ of Syphilis, the Spirocheta
pallida (see fig. 6). As I write these words the sad
news of Schaudinn's death at the age of thirty-five
comes to me from his family at Hamburg — an irre-
parable loss.

Let me finally state, in relation to this study of
disease, what is the simple fact — namely, that if the
people of Britain wish to make an end of infective
and other diseases they must take every possible means
to discover capable investigators, and employ them for
this purpose. To do this, far more money is required
than is at present spent in that direction. It is
necessary, if we are to do our utmost, to spend a
thousand pounds of public money on this task where
we now spend one pound. It would be reasonable
and wise to expend ten million pounds a year of our
revenues on the investigation and attempt to destroy
disease. Actually what is so spent is a mere nothing,
a few thousands a year. Meanwhile our people are
dying by thousands of preventable disease.

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 149

2. THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE AS MEASURED
BY THE SUPPORT GIVEN TO IT BY PUBLIC
FUNDS, AND THE RESPECT ACCORDED TO
SCIENTIFIC WORK BY THE BRITISH GO-
VERNMENT AND THE COMMUNITY AT LARGE.

Whilst I have been able, though in a very frag-
mentary and incomplete way, to indicate the satisfactory
and, indeed, the wonderful progress of science in the
last quarter of a century, so far as the making of
new knowledge is concerned, I am sorry to say that
there is by no means a corresponding ' advancement '
of Science in that signification of the word which
implies the increase of the influence of science in
the life of the commuity, the increase of the support
given to it, and of the desire to aid in its progress,
to discover and then to encourage and reward those
who are specially fitted to increase scientific know-
ledge, and to bring it to bear so as to promote the
welfare of the community.

It is, unfortunately, true that the successive political
administrators of the affairs of this country, as well
as the permanent officials, are altogether unaware to-
day, as they were twenty-five years ago, of the vital
importance of that knowledge which we call science,
and of the urgent need for making use of it in a
variety of public affairs. Whole departments of
Government in which scientific knowledge is the one
thing needful are carried on by ministers, permanent
secretaries, assistant secretaries and clerks who ar«
wholly ignorant of science, and naturally enough dislike
it, since it cannot be used by them, and is in many
instances the condemnation of their official employment.

150 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

Such officials are, of course, not to be blamed, but
rather the general indifference of the public to
the unreasonable way in which its interests are
neglected.

A difficult feature in treating of this subject is that
when one mentions the fact that ministers of State
and the officials of the public service are not acquainted
with science, and do not even profess to understand its
results or their importance, one's statement of this
very obvious and notorious fact is apt to be regarded
as a personal offence. It is difficult to see wherein the
offence lies, for no one seeks to blame these officials
for a condition of things which is traditional and
frankly admitted.

This is really a very serious matter for the scientific
world to consider and deal with. We represent a line
of activity, a group of professions which are in our
opinion of vital importance to the well-being of the
nation. We know that those interests which we value
so highly are not merely ignored and neglected, but
are actually treated as of no account or as non-
existent by the old-established class of politicians and
administrators. It is not too much to say that there
is a natural fear and dislike of scientific knowledge
on the part of a large proportion of the persons who
are devoid of it, and who would cease to hold, or
never have held, the positions of authority or emolu-
ment which they now occupy, were scientific know-
ledge of the matters with which they undertake to
deal required of them. This is a thorny subject, and
one in which, however much one may endeavour to
speak in general terms, it is difficult to avoid causing
personal annoyance. Yet it seems to me one of urgent
importance. Probably an inquiry into and discussion

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 151

of the neglect of science and the questionable treatment
of scientific men by the administrative departments of
Government might with advantage be undertaken by a
committee appointed by our great scientific societies
for the purpose.

At the same time public attention should be drawn in
general terms to the fact that science is not gaining
' advancement ' in public and official consideration and
support. The reason is, I think, to be found in the defec-
tive education, both at school and university, of our
governing class, as well as in a racial dislike among all
classes to the establishment and support by public funds
of posts which the average man may not expect to succeed
by popular clamour or class privilege in gaining for him-
self— posts which must be held by men of special training
and mental gifts. Whatever the reason for the neglect,
the only remedy which we can possibly apply is that of
improved education for the upper classes, and the con-
tinued effort to spread a knowledge of the results of
science and a love for it amongst all members of the com-
munity. If believers in science took this matter seriously
to heart they might do a great deal by insisting that their
sons, and their daughters too, should have reasonable
instruction in science both at school and college. They
could, by their own initiative and example, do a good deal
to put an end to the trifling with classical literature and
the absorption in athletics which is considered by too
many schoolmasters as that which the British parent de-
sires as the education of his children.

Within the past year a letter has been published by a
well-known nobleman, who is one of the Trustees of the
British Museum, holding up to public condemnation the
method in which the system laid down by the officials of
the Treasury and sanctioned by successive Governments,

152 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

as to the remuneration of scientific men, was applied in an
individual case. I desire to place on record here the Earl
of Crawford's letter to the ' Times ' of October 31, 1905,
for the careful consideration of those who desire the
advancement of science. When such things are done,
science cannot be said to have advanced much in public
consideration or Governmental support.

To the Editor of the l Times:

SIR, — The death, noted by you to-day, of my dear friend and
colleague Dr. Copeland, His Majesty's Astronomer for Scotland, creates
a vacancy in the scientific staff of Great Britain.

Will you permit me, Sir, to offer a word of warning to any who may
be asked to succeed him ?

Students or masters of astronomy are not, in the selfish sense,
business men, nor are they as a general rule overburdened with this
world's goods. It behoves them henceforth to take more care as to
their future in case of illness or physical infirmity and not to trust to the
gratitude or generous impulse of the Treasury Department.

In old days it was the custom when a man distinguished in science
was brought into a high position in the Civil Service that he was credited
with a certain number of years' service ranking for pension. This
practice has been done away with, and a bargain system substituted.
A short while ago the growing agonies of heart disease caused Dr.
Copeland to feel that he was less able to carry on the duties of his post,
and he determined to resign ; but he learnt that under the scale, and in
the absence of any special bargain, the pension he would receive would
not suffice for the necessities of life. The only increase his friends could
get from the Treasury was an offer to allow him about half-a-crown a
week extra by way of a house.

Indignant and ashamed of my Government, I persuaded Dr. Cope-
land to withdraw his resignation and to retain the official position which
he has honoured till his death.

1 trust, Sir, that this memorandum of mine may cause eminent men
of science who are asked to enter the service of the State when already
of middle age to take heed for their future welfare.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

CRAWFORD.

2 Cavendish Square, October 28.

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 153

It is more agreeable to me not to dwell further on the
comparative failure of science to gain increased influence
and support in this country, but to mention some in-
stances on the other side of the account. As long ago as
1842 the British Association took over and developed an
observatory in the Deer Park at Kew, which was placed
at the disposal of the Association by Her Majesty the
Queen. Until 1871 the Association spent annually a large
part of its income — as much in later years as 6oo/. a year —
in carrying on the work of the Kew Observatory, consist-
ing of magnetic, meteorological and physical observations.
In 1871 the Association handed over the Observatory to
the Royal Society, which had received an endowment of
10,0001. from Mr. Gassiot for its maintenance, and had
further devoted to that purpose considerable sums from
its own Donation Fund and Government Grant. Further
aid for it was also received from private sources. From
this Observatory at last has sprung, in the beginning of
the present century, the National Physical Laboratory in
Bushey Park, a fine and efficient scientific institution,
built and supported by grants from the State, and
managed by a committee of really devoted men of science
who are largely representatives of the Royal Society. In
addition to the value of the site and buildings occupied
by the National Physical Laboratory, the Government
has contributed altogether 34,ooo/. to the capital expendi-
ture on new buildings, fittings, and apparatus, and has
further assigned a grant of 6,ooo/. a year to the working
of the laboratory. This institution all men of science are
truly glad to have gained from the State, and they will
remember with gratitude the statesmen — the late Marquis
of Salisbury, the Right Hon. Arthur J. Balfour, Mr. Hal-
dane, and others — as well as their own leaders — Lord
Rayleigh, Sir William Huggins, and the active body of

154 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

physicists in the Royal Society who have carried this
enterprise to completion. The British Association has
every reason to be proud of its share in early days in
nursing the germ at Kew which has at length expanded
into this splendid national institution.

I may mention also another institution which, during
the past quarter of a century, has come into existence and
received, originally through the influence of the late Lord
Playfair (one of the few men of science who has ever
occupied the position of a Minister of the Crown), and
later by the influence of the Right Hon. Joseph Chamber-
lain, a subsidy of i,ooo/. a year from the Government and
a contribution of 5,ooo/. towards its initial expenses. This
is the Marine Biological Association,1 which has a labora-
tory at Plymouth (see fig. 47), and has lately expended
a special annual grant, at the spontaneous invitation of
His Majesty's Treasury, in conducting an investigation of
the North Sea in accordance with an international scheme
devised by a central committee of scientific experts. This
scheme has for its purpose the gaining such knowledge of
the North Sea and its inhabitants as shall be useful in
dealing practically and by legislation with the great
fisheries of that area. The reader will, perhaps, not be
surprised to hear that there are persons in high positions
who, though admittedly unacquainted with the scientific
questions at issue or the proper manner of solving them,
are discontented with the action of the Government in
entrusting the expenditure of public money to a body of

1 I had the honour and good fortune to found this association and
to collect the funds so generously given to it — then for many years to act
as its honorary secretary, to design and superintend the erection of the
laboratory and to organize, in conjunction with my scientific colleagues,
its staff, its scheme of work and government. On the death of our
beloved president, Professor Huxley, I was elected as his successor, and
still occupy that position.

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 155

scientific men who give their services, without reward or
thanks, to carrying out the purposes of the international
inquiry. Strange criticisms are offered by these mal-

FIG. 47.

The Laboratory of the Marine Biological Association on the Citadel
Hill, Plymouth, overlooking Plymouth Sound, The laboratory was built
with the aid of funds raised by public subscription and a contribution of
£5,000 by H.M. Government, and cost £12,200. The Association has
expended, exclusive of this sum, since the opening of the laboratory in
1884, about £62,000, or an average of £3,000 a year on the maintenance
of the laboratory, steam-boat and fishing-boats, and in payment of a staff
of scientific observers. Of this sum the Government has contributed
one-third, the rest has come from private donations and subscriptions, and
from the " earnings " of the laboratory by sale of specimens, admission
fees to the tank-room, &c. The journal of the Association, published at
intervals, records a vast amount of scientific work, advancing our
knowledge of marine life and of the life-history of fishes.

In addition to the above expenditure and results, the Association has super-
intended and most carefully directed the expenditure of £6,000 a year
during the past five years in the investigation of the southern area of the
North Sea and of the Channel at the request of H.M. Government, the work
being part of the International Investigation of the North Sea. The very
voluminous results of these inquiries are published in special reports by
the International Committee. Full particulars of the work of the Marine
Biological Association can be obtained from Dr. E. J. Allen, the Director,
the Laboratory, Citadel Hill, Plymouth, who will also receive donations
and applications for membership of the Association.

156 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

contents in regard to the work done in the international
exploration of the North Sea, and a desire is expressed
to secure the money for expenditure by a less scientific
agency. I do not hesitate to say here that the results
obtained by the Marine Biological Association are of
great value and interest, and, if properly continued and
put to practical application, are likely to benefit very
greatly the fishery industry; on the other hand, if the
work is cut short or entrusted to incompetent hands it
will no doubt be the case that what has already been done
will lose its value — that is to say, will have been wasted.
There is imminent danger of this perversion of the funds
assigned to this scientific investigation taking place.
There is no guarantee for the continuance of any funds
or offices assigned to science in one generation by the
officials of the next. The Mastership of the Mint held
by Isaac Newton, and finally by the great chemist
Thomas Graham, has been abolished and its salary
appropriated by non-scientific officials. Only a few years
ago it was with great difficulty that the Government of
the day was prevented from assigning the Directorship
of Kew Gardens to a young man of influence devoid of
all knowledge of botany !

One of the most solid tests of the esteem and value
attached to scientific progress by the community is the
dedication of large sums of money to scientific purposes
by its wealthier members. We know that in the United
States such gifts are not infrequent ; they are rare in this
country. It is, therefore, with especial pleasure that I
call attention to a great gift to science in this country
made only a few years ago. Lord Iveagh has endowed
the Lister Institute, for researches in connection with the
prevention of disease, with no less a sum than a quarter
of a million pounds sterling. This is the largest gift ever

THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE 157

made to science in this country, and will be productive of
great benefit to humanity. The Lister Institute took its
origin in the surplus of a fund raised (at my suggestion
and with my assistance as secretary) by Sir James White-
head when Lord Mayor, some sixteen years ago, for the
purpose of making a gift to the Pasteur Institute in Paris,
where many English .patients had been treated, without
charge, after being bitten by rabid dogs. Three thousand
pounds was sent to M. Pasteur, and the surplus of a few
hundred pounds was made the starting-point of a fund
which grew, by one generous gift and another, until the
Lister Institute on the Thames Embankment at Chelsea
was set up on a site presented by that good and high-
minded man, the late Duke of Westminster.

Many other noble gifts to scientific research have been
made in this country during the period on which we are
looking back. Let us be thankful for them, and admire
the wise munificence of the donors. But none the less
we must refuse to rely entirely on such liberality for the
development of the army of science, which has to do
battle for mankind against the obvious disabilities and
sufferings which afflict us and can be removed by know-
ledge. The organisation and finance of this army should
be the care of the State.

It is a fact which many who have observed it regret
very keenly, that there is to-day a less widespread interest
than formerly in natural history and general science, out-
side the strictly professional arena of the school and
university. The field naturalists among the squires and
the country parsons seem nowadays not to be so numerous
and active in their delightful pursuits as formerly, and
the Mechanics' Institutes and Lecture Societies of the
days of Lord Brougham have given place, to a very large
extent, to musical performances, bioscopes, and other

158 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

entertainments, more diverting, but not really more
capable of giving pleasure than those in which science
was popularised. No doubt the organisation and pro-
fessional character of scientific work are to a large extent
the cause of this falling-off in its attraction for amateurs.
But perhaps that decadence is also due in some measure
to the increased general demand for a kind of manu-
factured gaiety, readily sent out in these days of easy
transport from the great centres of fashionable amusement
to the provinces and rural districts.

Before concluding this retrospect, I would venture to
allude to the relations of scientific progress to religion.
Putting aside the troubles connected with special creeds
and churches and the claims of the clerical profession to
certain funds and employments to the exclusion of laymen,
it should, I think, be recognized that there is no essential
antagonism between the scientific spirit and what is called
the religious sentiment. ' Religion,' said Bishop Creighton,
' means the knowledge of our destiny and of the means of
fulfilling it.' We can say no more and no less of Science.
Men of Science seek, in all reverence, to discover the
Almighty, the Everlasting. They claim sympathy and
friendship with those who, like themselves, have turned
away from the more material struggles of human life, and
have set their hearts and minds on the knowledge of the
Eternal.

159

CHAPTER III.
NATURE'S REVENGES: THE SLEEPING SICKNESS.

AMONG the strange and mysterious diseases to which
mankind is subject in regions less familiar to the civilised
world than Western Europe, none is stranger or more
appalling in its quiet, inexorable deadliness than the
Sleeping Sickness of the West African coast. Apparently
it has existed among the natives of that region from time
immemorial ; but the first printed record we have of it
is due to Winterbottom, who, writing in 1803 of Sierra
Leone, said, " The Africans are very subject to a species of
lethargy which they are much afraid of, as it proves fatal
in every instance." One of the latest notices of the
disease, before it became the subject of active investiga-
tion within the last five years, is that of Miss Kingsley,
who saw a few cases near the Congo estuary, but,
though she was impressed by the mysterious fatality of
the disease, she did not describe it as very prevalent or
as a general source of danger to life. The opening up
of the Congo basin and increased familiarity with the
inner lands of the West African coast have shown that
this disease is widely scattered — though rarely so abund-
ant as to be a serious scourge — through the whole of
tropical West Africa. Writers in the early part of the
last century described the disease as occurring in the West
Indies and in Brazil. Its presence was almost certainly
due, in those days of the slave trade, to the importation

i6o THE KINGDOM OF MAN

of negroes already infected with the disease ; and a
curious theory obtained some favour, according to which
the sleeping sickness of the West Indian slaves was a
kind of nostalgia, and, in fact, the manifestation of what
is sometimes called " a broken heart."

The signs that a patient has contracted the disease
are very obvious. They are recognised by the black
people, and the certainly fatal issue accepted with
calm acquiescence. The usually intelligent expression
of the healthy negro is replaced by a dull apathetic
appearance ; and there is a varying amount of fever
and headache. This may last for some weeks but is
followed more or less rapidly by a difficulty in locomo-
tion and speech, a trembling of the tongue and hands.
There is increased fever and constant drowsiness, from
which the patient is roused only to take food. At
last — usually after some three or four months of illness
— complete somnolence sets in ; no food is taken ; the
body becomes emaciated and ulcerated ; and the victim
dies in a state of coma. The course of the disease, from
the time when the apathetic stage is first noticed, may
last from two to twelve months.

It is this terrible disease which has lately appeared on
the shores of the Victoria Nyanza, in the kingdom of
Uganda, administered by the British Government. Until
the early part of the year 1901 there was not the slightest
suspicion that sleeping sickness occurred in any part of
the Uganda Protectorate ; nor was it known in East
Africa at all, any more than in the north and south of
that great continent. It seems gradually to have crept
up the newly opened trade-routes of the Congo basin, and
thence to have spread into the west of Uganda, the ter-
ritory known as Busoga. Numbers of Soudanese and
Congo men are known to have settled in this region after

THE SLEEPING SICKNESS 161

the death of Emin Pasha. First noticed in igoi, it was
estimated in June 1902, by the Commissioner of Uganda,
writing officially to the Marquess of Lansdowne, that
20,000 persons had died of this disease in the district
of Busoga alone, and several thousands in the more
eastern portion of Uganda. At this moment it is pro-
bable that the number of deaths in this region due to
sleeping sickness since 1901 amounts to more than
200,000 ; and this though, most fortunately, the disease
has not yet spread eastward from Uganda into British
East Africa,1 nor, so far as has been reported, down the
Nile. No curative treatment for the disease has yet been
discovered ; nor is there any authenticated instance of
recovery.

The appalling mortality produced by this disease in
Central Africa naturally caused the greatest anxiety to
his Majesty's Government, which had but just completed
the railway from the East Coast to the shores of lake
Victoria Nyanza, and had established a prosperous and
happy rule in that densely populated region. The official
medical men on the spot, though capable and experienced
practitioners, were unable to cope with this new and
virulent outbreak. The Foreign Office, having no im-
perial board of hygiene and medical administration to apply
to in this country, sought the assistance of the Royal
Society of London.

A committee of that society had already undertaken
the study of malaria at the request of the Secretary of
State for the Colonies, and had sent out young medical
men as a commission to make certain enquiries and

1 The disease has actually entered into the administrative area known
as British East Africa, but has not made any rapid progress towards the
coast. According to a report by Dr. Wiggins, the disease is confined in
British East Africa, as in Uganda, to those areas in which Glossina palpalis
occurs.

M

i62 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

experiments on that subject and report to the committee
in London. The sleeping sickness enquiry was under-
taken by the same committee ; but unfortunately very
insufficient funds were placed at its disposal. When the
South African cattle-owners found their herds threatened
six years ago by a new form of mortal disease — ' the
East Coast fever ' — the South African Government ac-
cepted the offer of Dr. Robert Koch, of Berlin, to under-
take the investigation of the disease and the discovery, if
possible, of a remedy, for the sum of £10,000. No such
sum was at the disposal of the committee of the Royal
Society. They were obliged to send out young and
enterprising medical men, practically without pay or
reward, to see what they could do in the way of deter-
mining the cause of, and, if possible, the remedy for,
the terrible sleeping sickness raging in Uganda and
destroying daily hundreds of British subjects. The com-
mittee set to work in the summer of 1902, and sent
out Drs. Low, Christy, and Castellani to Entebbe, the
capital of Uganda.

The guesses as to the cause and nature of sleeping
sickness at the time when this commission set forth were
very various. Some highly capable medical authorities
held that it was due to poisonous food. The root of the
manioc, on which the natives feed, was supposed to be-
come infected by some poison-producing ferment. A more
generally received opinion was that it was caused by
a specific bacterium which invades the tissues of the
brain and spinal cord. Several totally different micro-
organisms of this sort had been described with equal
confidence by French and Portuguese investigators as the
cause of the sleeping sickness studied by them in West
Africa or on the Congo. Sir Patrick Manson, the head
of the British Colonial medical service, an authority of

THE SLEEPING SICKNESS 163

great experience in tropical disease, had put forward
the suggestion that the sleeping sickness was due to the
infection of the patient by a minute thread worm (allied
to the ' vinegar-eel,' and one of a great class of parasites)
which he had discovered in the blood of negroes and had
named Filaria perstans.

The occurrence of minute worms (true worms, neither
unicellular plants nor protozoa) in the blood of man was
first made known by Dr. Timothy Lewis, who described
the Filaria sanguinis hominis, as well as some other
most important blood-parasites, some years ago (1878),
when officially engaged in an enquiry into the cause of
cholera in Calcutta. Subsequently, in China, Manson
found that these little blood-worms were sucked up by
mosquitoes when gorging themselves on the blood of a
patient. It is, indeed, difficult to imagine how they
should escape passing into the mosquito with the blood.
Manson suggested that the minute worms (known to be
the embryos of a worm which, when adult, is about one
fifteenth of an inch long) are obliged to pass through a
mosquito in order to accomplish their development ; but
no proof of this suggestion has ever been made. We know
by abundant and repeated demonstration and experiment
that another blood -parasite — the malaria parasite — must
pass through a mosquito, in whose body it develops, and
by which it is carried to a new victim of infection. This
was suspected long ago by both peasants and doctors, and
experimentally proved by Ross ; but no such proof has
been given of the relation of Lewis's blood-worm to a
mosquito. The so-called Filaria perstans, discovered by
Manson in the blood of negroes, appears to be very dif-
ferent from the Filaria sanguinis hominis of Lewis. It is not
known how it gets into the blood ; and it is very
astonishing, and much to be regretted, that none of the

M 2

1 64 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

medical men who have had it under observation have
given a proper anatomical account of it. It appears that
this worm is very common in the blood of negroes in
tropical Africa ; and as it was found in several cases in
the blood of individuals attacked by sleeping sickness, Sir
Patrick Manson was justified in entertaining the view
that this parasite was the cause of the disease.

One of the first results obtained by the commission
sent by the Royal Society committee to Uganda was the
proof — which had, indeed, been already furnished by the
resident medical officers of the Uganda Protectorate — that
Filaria perstans, though remarkably abundant in the
blood of the negroes of Uganda, can have nothing to do
with sleeping sickness, since, though it often occurs in
persons attacked with that disease, it also exists in districts
where sleeping sickness is unknown ; and, further, many
cases of sleeping sickness have been observed in which no
Filaria perstans has been discovered in the blood or other
parts of the body.

While Drs. Low and Christy occupied themselves with
settling this question as to the connexion of Filaria
perstans with the disease and carried out a careful study
of its clinical aspects, Dr. Castellani examined the brain
and spinal cord of those who died from sleeping sickness,
for bacteria. He found again and again an extremely
minute globular vegetable parasite — of the kind known as
streptococcus — which he concluded to be the cause of the
disease, although he had not produced the disease experi-
mentally by inoculating an animal with this microbe.

In the early part of 1903 these were the only results
obtained by some six months' work of the medical men
sent out by the Royal Society's committee ; and it was
felt that something more must be done. The investigation
of a disease hitherto little known and studied is one of

THE SLEEPING SICKNESS 165

the most difficult tasks in the world, requiring the highest
scientific qualities. Any serious attempt to deal with the
sleeping sickness in Uganda would, it was at length
recognised, require the dispatch of a man of proved
capacity and experience, provided with full powers and
with trained men as his assistants. No such men are
provided by the public service of the British Empire. To
detach a medical man of recognised insight and experi-
mental skill from his practice — even were it possible to
find one specially qualified for the present enquiry — would
involve the payment of a large fee, which neither the
Royal Society nor the Foreign Office could command.

What, then, was to be done ? Fortunately there was
one man in the public service, recently appointed to be
one of the chiefs of the educational arrangements of the
Army Medical Department, who had shown himself to be
especially gifted in the investigation of obscure diseases.
This was Colonel David Bruce, F.R.S., who, some fifteen
years ago, established the existence of Malta fever, as an
independent disease, by his clinical observations and by
the isolation and cultivation of the parasitic bacterium
causing it ; and who, further, when employed by the
governor of Zululand a few years later (1895) to investi-
gate the celebrated tsetze-fly disease of South Africa, had
discovered, contrary to the assertions and prejudices of a
large number of African sportsmen and explorers, that
the horse and cattle disease known as nagana or tsetze-fly
disease was due to the presence in the blood of the affected
animals of a peculiar cork-screw-like animal parasite, the
Trypanosoma Brucei. This is carried by the bite of
the tsetze-fly from the blood of wild game, such as
buffalo and antelope, where it does no harm, to the blood
of domesticated animals, in which it multiplies and proves
to be the source of a deadly poison causing death in a few

166 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

weeks. The experiments by which Colonel Bruce demon-
strated this relationship of tsetze-fly, trypanosome parasite,
wild big game, and domesticated animals, were universally
regarded as masterly both in conception and execution,
and absolutely conclusive.

The committee of the Royal Society came to the
conclusion that the thing to be done was to get
Colonel Bruce to consent to proceed to Uganda, and
to recommend the Foreign Office to obtain from
the War Office the temporary detachment of
Colonel Bruce for this service. Accordingly Colonel
Bruce arrived in Uganda in the middle of March,
1903. Dr. Low and Dr. Christy had already departed,
but Dr. Castellani was still at Entebbe engaged in the study
of his streptococcus. He mentioned to Colonel Bruce on
his arrival that he had on more than one occasion seen
a trypanosome in the cerebro-spinal fluid of negroes
suffering from sleeping sickness ; but, inasmuch as Dutton
on the West Coast and Hodges in Uganda had described
a trypanosome as an occasional parasite in human blood,
he had not considered its occurrence in sleeping-sickness
patients as of any more significance than is the occurrence
of Filar ia per stans. Castellani regarded the trypanosome,
like the filaria, as a mere accidental concomitant of
sleeping sickness, the cause of which he considered to be
the bacterial streptococcus which he had so frequently
found to be present.

Naturally enough, Bruce was impressed by the fact
that trypanosomes, of the deadly nature of which he had
had ample experience, had been found, even once, in the
cerebro-spinal fluid of sleeping-sickness patients ; and he
immediately set to work to make a thorough search for
this parasite in all the cases of sleeping sickness ; then
under observation at Entebbe. He generously allowed

THE SLEEPING SICKNESS 167

Castellani to take part in the investigation, which resulted
in the immediate discovery of the trypanosome in the
cerebro-spinal fluid of twenty cases, out of thirty-four
examined, of negroes afflicted with the disease ; whilst in
twelve negroes free from sleeping sickness the trypano-
some could not be found in the cerebro-spinal fluid.
Castellani returned to Europe three weeks after Bruce's
experiments were commenced, and announced the dis-
covery, which has been, in consequence, erroneously
attributed to him, although mainly due to Bruce.

Bruce continued his work in Uganda until the end of
August, 1903, having been joined there by Colonel Greig
of the Indian Army, who has continued the work of the
Royal Society's commission since Bruce left. Other
valuable observations have been carried out by various
medical men officially connected with the Uganda Pro-
tectorate. Bruce soon showed that in every case of
sleeping sickness, when examined with sufficient care,
the trypanosome parasite is found to be present in the
cerebro-spinal fluid. He also showed that it is absent
from that fluid in all negroes examined who were not
afflicted with the disease, but made the very important
discovery that the trypanosome is present in the blood
(not the cerebro-spinal fluid) of twenty-eight per cent,
of the population in those areas where sleeping sickness
occurs, the persons thus affected having none of the
symptoms of sleeping sickness, but being either perfectly
healthy or merely troubled with a little occasional fever.
The subsequent history of all the cases thus observed
has not as yet been recorded. But in many such, even
in some Europeans, the earlier presence of the trypano-
some in the blood has been followed by its entry into
the cerebro-spinal lymphatics, and by the fatal develop-
ment of sleeping sickness.

i68 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

As already indicated, it was found by Bruce, on
recording the cases of sleeping sickness brought into or
reported in Entebbe, that there were certain " sleeping-
sickness areas " and other areas free from sleeping sick-
ness. The theory now took shape in Bruce's mind that
the trypanosome first gets into the blood, and then
after a time, makes its way into the cerebro-spinal
system, only then producing its deadly symptoms. Very
generally, when once in the blood, the trypanosome
multiplies itself, and sooner or later — apparently, in
some cases, even after two or three years — gets into
the cerebro-spinal fluid. It is probable that it may
be destroyed by natural processes in the human body
before this final stage is reached ; and thus the infected
person may recover and escape the deadly phase of the
disease. But nothing certain is known, as yet, on this
/ head. Later observations show that the trypanosome is
found alive and in large quantity in the lymphatic glands,
especially those in the region of the neck in infected
persons. These glands were known to be enlarged in
persons suffering from the disease.

Colonel Bruce's next step was to ascertain the mode
in which the trypanosome is introduced into the blood.
Naturally he looked for a kind of tsetze fly, such as
carries the trypanosome in the nagana disease of horses
and cattle already studied by him in Zululand. It
is a fact that the Glossina morsitans and Glossina
pallidipes, which are the tsetze flies of the " fly-dis-
tricts " where nagana disease is rife, are unknown in
Central or Western Africa ; and also it is a fact that
no tsetze fly had been observed in the neighbourhood
of the Victoria Nyanza when Colonel Bruce began his
enquiries. He employed, through the good-will of the
native chiefs and rulers, a large number of natives to

THE SLEEPING SICKNESS 169

collect flies throughout the country forming a belt
of twenty or thirty miles around the north of the lake.
Many thousands of flies were thus brought in, and the
localities from which they came carefully noted. Among
these flies Colonel Bruce recognised a tsetze fly ; and
when these collections were received at the Natural
History Museum in London, it was at once determined
by Mr. Austen, the assistant in charge of our collections
of Diptera (or two-winged flies), that the Uganda tsetze
fly was not the same species as that of Zululand and the
fly country, but a distinct species previously known only
on the West Coast and the Congo basin, and described by
the name Glossina palpalis. The story thus developed
itself: the trypanosome of sleeping sickness is probably
carried by this West Coast tsetze fly just as the trypano-
some of nagana is carried in the south-east of Africa by
the Glossina morsitans and pallidipes, the regular and
original " tsetze " flies.

Sleeping sickness thus presented itself as a special
kind of human tsetze-fly disease. To test this hypothesis,
Colonel Bruce pursued two very important and distinct
lines of enquiry. In the first place he found that those
places on his map which were marked as " sleeping-sick-
ness areas " were precisely those places from which the
collected flies included specimens of tsetze fly, whilst he
found that there were no tsetze flies in the collections of
flies brought in by the natives from the regions where
there was no sleeping sickness.

His second test inquiry consisted in ascertaining
whether the tsetze flies of Uganda are actually found,
experimentally, to be capable of carrying the trypanosome
from one infected person to another. For this purpose
it was necessary to make use of monkeys, certain species
of which were ascertained to be liable to the infection of

170 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

the sleeping sickness trypanosome when this was intro-
duced by means of injection through a syringe. Such
monkeys were found to develop the chief symptoms of
sleeping sickness, and ultimately died of the disease,
their cerebro-spinal fluid being invaded by the parasites.
Accordingly it was possible to use monkeys as test
animals. It was found by Colonel Bruce that tsetze flies
(Glossina palpalis} which had been made to bite infected
negroes could carry the infection to the monkeys ; and
it was also found that even when a number of tsetze flies,
not specially prepared, were allowed to bite a monkey,
the latter eventually developed the trypanosome in its
blood and cerebro-spinal fluid, thus showing that the
tsetze flies, as naturally occurring in the country around
Entebbe, contain many of them, the trypanosome ready
to pass from the fly to a human or simian victim, when
casually bitten by the fly.

Experiments such as these of infection by the fly, and
the use of monkeys in the research, require very great
care ; and it is quite reasonable to ask that they shall be
repeated and most carefully checked before they are
considered as demonstrative and absolutely certain. It
may, however, be considered as practically certain that the
sleeping sickness is due to the presence in the cerebro-
spinal fluid of quantities of a minute parasite, the Trypano-
soma Gambiense, which is carried from man to man by the
palpalis tsetze fly, which sucks it up from the blood of
an infected individual and conveys it to previously unin-
fected individuals. The natives in Uganda lie about and
sleep under the shade of trees where the tsetze flies
are especially abundant ; and they are quite indifferent to
the bites of flies of one kind and another.

It is the dislike to the mere touch of a fly, still more
to its bite, which has protected Europeans almost entirely

THE SLEEPING SICKNESS 171

from the sleeping sickness. Unfortunately there is no
immunity for Europeans in the matter ; and the exist-
ence of half a dozen or more cases of white people
infected with the trypanosome, who have ultimately
died in England or elsewhere in Europe from sleeping-
sickness contracted through the bite of a fly in Africa, is
abundant proof that there is not, as has been supposed,
any special freedom from the disease for white people l

The foregoing description of the nature and mode of
the infection of sleeping sickness will not cause any
astonishment to the layman of the present day who
knows anything of recent medical science. We are all
familiar with the danger of fly-bites, even in this
country, where deadly bacteria are occasionally carried
by biting flies, such as the horse-flies, into the human
subject ; and nowadays every one is more or less familiar
with the discovery of the minute blood-parasite which
causes malaria or ague and is carried by a particular
kind of gnat in the interior of which it multiplies by
a process of sexual conjugation. At the same time
the reader who is interested in sleeping sickness will
probably desire to know more about the nature of the
tsetze flies and some further details as to the parasite
spoken of as trypanosome.

The tsetze flies form a genus called by Wiedemann
(in 1830) " Glossina." They are only found in Africa ; and
some seven species in all are known. They are little bigger
than a common house-fly, and much like it in colour (fig. 48).
They differ in appearance from the house-fly in the fact

1 Only last year (1905) Lieut. Tulloch, of the Army Medical Depart-
ment, who with Professor Minchin was engaged in carrying on further
researches for the Royal Society on the sleeping sickness at Entebbe in
Uganda, became infected by the trypanosome, probably through an
unobserved bite by a tsetze fly, and died of the disease soon after his
return to England.

172 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

that the wings, when the insect is at rest, are parallel to
one another, and slightly over-lap in the middle line,
instead being to a small extent divergent at their free
extremities. The bite, like that of all flies, is rather
a stab than a bite, and is effected by a beak-like process
of the head, the blood of the animal pricked in this way
being drawn into the fly's mouth by a sucking action of
the gullet. The tsetze flies appear to be especially greedy
and are said to gorge themselves to such an extent that
the blood taken in from one animal overflows the gullet,
and so contaminates the wound inflicted by the fly on the
next animal it visits. It is at the present moment
assumed very generally that this is the way in which

Tsetze flies — Glossina morsitans —
magnified two diameters. This is
the " fly " of the Nagana or horse and
cattle disease of South Africa. The
Glossina palpalis, which carries the
Trypanosoma Gambiense causing sleep-
ing sickness, is very closely similar
to it in appearance.

FIG.

infection is produced. But it is not at all improbable
that the trypanosome undergoes some kind of multiplica-
tion and change of form when sucked into the tsetze fly
as happens in the case of the malaria parasite when
swallowed by the Anopheles gnat. No such change has
yet been discovered in regard to the trypanosome of
sleeping sickness : but it cannot be said that the matter
has been exhaustively studied, or that a negative conclu-
sion is justified.1

1 Professor Minchin investigated this subject during 1905 in Uganda
whither he went on behalf of the Tropical Diseases Committee of the
Royal Society. He did not discover anything corresponding to the
development of the malarial parasite in the gnat, but his investigations
are not yet brought to a conclusion (December, 1906).

THE SLEEPING SICKNESS

173

As to the parasite itself — the trypanosome — a long
and very interesting story has now to be told. The first
blood-parasite ever made known to naturalists and
medical men was that to which Gruby, in 1843, gave the
name Trypanosoma sanguinis. He found it in the blood
of the common frog. We have here reproduced a figure

B

FIG. 49.

The earliest discovered Trypanosome, described by Gruby in 1843 as
" Trypanosoma sanguinis " and found by him in the blood of the common
esculent Frog.

It was not noticed again until it was re-discovered by Lankester in
1871, who published the above figure of it in the Quarterly Journal of Micro-
scopical Science in that year.

of this original trypanosome (fig. 49). Similar parasites
had been seen, but not named, in the blood of fishes.
These trypanosomes are all very minute and of a some-
what elongated form, a fair average length being one
thousandth of an inch. They are simple protoplasmic
animals, consisting of one single nucleated corpuscle.

174 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

The protoplasm is drawn out at one end of the creature
into a motile undulating thread, and from the point
where this joins the body a membranous undulating crest
extends along the greater part of the animal's length.
There is no mouth, nutrition being effected by the
imbibition of soluble nutrient matter.

After a long interval Gruby's trypanosome was re-
discovered in 1871 ; and then several kinds were described
in the blood of tortoises, fishes and birds. In 1878, Dr.
Timothy Lewis found a parasite in the blood of rats, at
first in India, and subsequently in the common rats of
London sewers. This parasite resembles a trypanosome
in many respects (fig. 4&A), but was very properly given
a distinct name by Savile Kent, who called it " Herpeto-
monas." This name has, however, been dropped ; and the
rat's-blood parasite is spoken of as a trypanosome. It is
the Trypanosoma Lewisii, and was the first of these
trypanosomes to be found in the blood of a mammalian
animal. The Trypanosoma Lewisii of the rat's blood
seems to do no harm to the rat, in which it swarms,
multiplying itself by longitudinal fission ; nor is it at
present knowfi to produce any trouble in other animals
when transferred to their blood. Similarly, the frog's
trypanosome seems to exist innocently in the frog's
blood.

The next trypanosome discovered (1880) was, however
found in the blood of camels, horses, and cattle suffering
from a deadly disease known in India by the name
"surra." It is called Trypanosoma Evansii, after the
observer who detected it. Trypanosomes now began to
get a bad name, for the next was discovered in animals
afflicted by a North African disease known to French
veterinaries as " dourine." This trypanosome was called
T. equiperdum.

THE SLEEPING SICKNESS 175

A little later, namely, in the year 1895, came Bruce's
discovery of a trypanosome associated with a tsetze fly
in the production of the terrible nagana disease of the
"fly-belts" of South Africa, which renders whole terri-
tories impassable for horses or cattle (fig. 466). The
remarkable and important observation was made by Bruce
that this trypanosome (known as T. Brucei) inhabits
the blood of big game without injuring them, just as
the rat's trypanosome inhabits the rat's blood without
producing disease ; and that it is only when the try-
panosome is carried from these natural wild "hosts" to
domesticated animals introduced by man, such as horses
asses, cattle, and dogs, that disease results. The wild
animals are " immune " to Bruce's trypanosome ; the
introduced animals are poisoned by the products of its
growth and fissile multiplication in their blood.

Since Bruce's researches on nagana, a trypanosome,
T. equinum (fig. 460), has been discovered in the horse-
ranches of South America, where it causes deadly disease,
the mal de caderas, among the collected horses ; and a
curiously large-sized trypanosome has been found by
Theiler in the blood of cattle in the Transvaal. Down
to a recent date no trypanosome had been found in
the blood of man ; and indeed it is almost certain that
none of the kinds hitherto mentioned can survive in his
blood. But in 1902 Button discovered a trypanosome
in the blood of a West African patient ; and a few
| other cases were noted. This trypanosome of human
I blood was called by Button T. Gambiense. It was not
found to be connected with any serious symptoms, a
little fever being the only disturbance noted. It now,
however, appears that this trypanosome in the blood
is the preliminary stage of the infection which ends in
sleeping sickness ; and, as we have seen, in a population

176 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

seriously attacked by sleeping sickness, as is that of
Uganda, as many as 28 per cent, of the people have
trypanosomes in their blood.

There is no ground at present known for distin-
guishing Button's T. Gambiense of human blood from
that which Bruce has found to be so terribly abundant
in Uganda, and to be the cause of sleeping sickness.
Indeed all the trypanosomes of the blood of the larger
mammalia are singularly alike in appearance ; and the
figure which is here given (fig. 50) of the trypanosome
of sleeping sickness (T. Gambiense) might quite well
serve to represent the T. Evansii of surra disease, the

Trypanosome Gambiense, from the
blood of men suffering from the early
symptoms of sleeping sickness. A,
after Bruce and Navarro; B, after
Castellani. They show a large oval
nucleus (drawn as a black mass), and
a small black " micronucleus," or
" blepharoplast " in front.

T. Brucfi of nagana disease, or the T. equimim of the South
American mal de caderas.

A most characteristic feature, which has been made
out by the careful study of these trypanosomes by means
of colouring reagents and very high powers of the
microscope, is that, whilst there is a large granular
nucleus there is also a small body at the anterior end
of the animalcul'e which readily stains and is placed at
the end of the root (so to speak) of the vibratile
flagellum or free thread. This smaller nucleus has been
variously called the " micronucleus," the " centrosome,"
and the " blepharoplast." It is identical with a structure

THE SLEEPING SICKNESS

177

similarly placed in non-parasitic miscroscopic animals to
which trypanosoma is undoubtedly related. We find it
in the phosphorescent noctiluca of our seas, and in various
animalcules called " Flagellata."

The creature drawn in our fig. 50 is, then, the typical
trypanosome. It is this which .the medical investigator
looks for in his human or animal patients ; it is this
which he has regarded as the sign and proof of infection.
Experiments have shown that, though so much alike in
appearance in the different diseases we have named, yet
each trypanosome has its own properties. Human blood-

The Trypanosome (T. equiperdum) of
the disease called " Dourine," as seen
alive in the blood of a rat, eight days
after inoculation.

A, the actively wriggling cork-screw-
like parasites ; B, the blood-corpuscles
of the rat. This figure, of compara-
tively low magnification, gives an in-
dication of the relative size of the
parasites and the blood-corpuscles.

The blood-corpuscles are about
of an inch each in diameter.

FIG. 51.

serum is poisonous to one and not to another ; an animal
immune to one is not immune to another. At present
no treatment has been discovered which will destroy the
parasites when once they have effected a lodgment, or
act as an antidote to the poison which they produce in
the infected animal or man. But the fact that in some
cases an animal may become immune to the attack of
the parasite which usually is deadly to its kind, gives
hope of an eventual curative treatment for trypano-
some infection ; as does also the fact that the serum of
some animals acts as a poison to trypanosomes which
flourish in other animals.

N

178 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

With regard to immunity, it must always be remem-
bered that we are liable to confuse two different condi-
tions under this one term. An animal may be said to be
immune to a blood- parasite because that parasite is
actually unable to live in its blood. On the other hand
an animal is often said to be immune to a parasite when
the parasite can and does flourish in its blood or tissues
but produces no poisonous effect. A more precise nomen-
clature would describe the attacked organism in the first
case as " repellent," for it repels the parasite altogether ;
in the second case as "jbolemmV" for it tolerates the
presence and multiplication of the parasite without suf-
fering by it.

We have yet to learn a good deal more as to the
repulsion and the toleration of the trypanosome parasites
by mammals and man. Still more have we to learn
about the life-history of the trypanosome. At the
moment of writing, absolutely nothing has been ascer-
tained as to the life-history of the trypanosomes of mam-
malian blood, except that they multiply in the blood by
longitudinal fission. Our ignorance about them is all the
more serious since other trypanosomes, discovered by
Danilewsky in birds, have been studied and have been
shown to go through the most varied phases of multi-
plication and change of size and shape, including a
process of sexual fertilisation like that of the malaria
parasite, to which, indeed, it now seems certain the
trypanosomes are very closely allied.

It is to Dr. Schaudinn,1 that we owe a knowledge of
some most extraordinary and important facts with regard
to the trypanosomes parasitic in the blood of the little
stone-owl of southern Europe (Athene noctud). These facts
are so remarkable that, were Dr. Schaudinn not known

1 Dr. Schaudinn died in 1906. He was only 35 years of age.

THE SLEEPING SICKNESS 179

as a very competent investigator of microscopic organisms
we should hesitate to accept them as true. Supposing,
as is not improbable, that similar facts can be shown in
regard to the trypanosomes of mammalian blood, the con-
clusions which our medical investigators have based upon
a very limited knowledge of the form and life-history of the
trypanosomes occurring in diseases such as sleeping sick-
ness, surra, and nagana, are likely to be gravely modified,
and practical issues of an unexpected kind will be involved.
As has already been pointed out in this article, the
British Government has no staff of public servants
trained to deal with the world-wide problems of sani-
tation and disease which necessarily come with increasing
frequency before the puzzled administrators of our
scattered Empire. There is no provision for the study
of the nature and history of blood-parasites in this
country, that is to say, no provision of laboratories with
the very ablest and exceptionally-gifted investigators at
their head1. We play with the provision of an adequate
army, officers, and equipment to fight disease, which
annually destroys hundreds of thousands of our people,
much as barbarous states or bankrupt European king-
doms play with the provision of an ordinary army and
navy. Their forces exist on paper, or even in fact, but
have no ammunition, no officers, and no information ;
and there is no pay for the soldiers or sailors. Dr.
Schaudinn, on the other hand, carried on his researches
as an officer of the German Imperial Health Bureau of
Berlin ; and the account of them was published in the
official Report of that important department of the German
imperial administrative service three years ago.

1 Since this was written a professorship of Protozoology has with the
assistance of the Colonial Office been established in the University of
London. This is a first step towards a recognition of the duty of the
State in this matter.

N 2

i8o

THE KINGDOM OF MAN

It is not possible here to give a full report on Dr.
Schaudinn's work ; but it appears that he has studied two
distinct species of trypanosoma, both occurring side by

FIG. 52.

Trypanosoma Ziemanni, from the gut of the gnat (Culex), having been
sucked in with the blood of the owl (Athene noctua}. A, fertilized vermiform
stage. B, multiplication of nucleus. C, elongation and coiling, with
increase of nuclei (after Schaudinn).

side in the blood of the little stone-owl, and already seen
but incompletely studied, by Danilewsky and Ziemann.
The second of the two species of trypanosome is in some

FIG. 53.

Minute neutral Trypanosomes in the gut of the gnat liberated from
the coiled form of Fig. 52, C (after Schaudinn).

respects the more remarkable. Schaudinn calls it Trypano-
soma Ziemanni ; and from the figures which are here given
(figs. 4. 5, 6, and 7), copied from his article, with the explana-

THE SLEEPING SICKNESS

181

tions below the figures, the reader will at once see what
an extraordinary range of form and mode of multiplica-
tion is presented by this one species of trypanosome.
Space will not permit us to comment on these various
phases beyond noting how assuredly such forms would
have escaped recognition as belonging to the trypanosome
history if seen, before Dr. Schaudinn's memoir was printed,
by any of our medical commissioners blindly exploring
round about the diseases caused by trypanosomes in man
and mammals.

A, B, C, D, Elongated spiral
forms of Tryf-anosoma Ziemanni
(some intertwined) developed from
those of Fig. 53 — showing trans-
verse division, nucleus, and
blepharoplast.

E, F, pear-shaped forms re-
sulting from the contraction of
forms like A ; G, a cluster of very
minute individuals.

These forms are observed in
the gnat and also in the blood of
the owl, into which they pass
when the gnat bites that bird,
and there give rise to the large
male and female Trypanosomes
seen in Fig. 55 (after Schaudinn).

F.

FIG. 54.

One very astonishing and revolutionary fact discovered
by Schaudinn we must, however, especially point out.
Medical men have long been acquainted with the spirillum,
or spiral threads, discovered by Obermeyer in the blood
of patients suffering from the relapsing fever of eastern
Europe. These were universally and without question
regarded as Bacteria (vegetable organisms) and referred to
the genus " Spirochaeta " of Ehrenberg. They were called
Spirochceta Obenneieri ; and relapsing fever was held to
be a typical case of a bacterial infection of the blood.

182

THE KINGDOM OF MAN

It is now shown by Schaudinn that the blood-parasite spiro-
chaeta is a phase of a trypanosome (fig. 54) ; that it has a
large nucleus and a micronucleus or blepharoplast, neither
of which are present in the spiral Bacteria; and, further,
that it alters its shape, contracting so as to present the
form of minute oval or pear-shaped bodies, each provided
with a larger and a smaller nucleus (fig. 54, E, F). These
oval bodies are often engulfed by the colourless corpuscles

A.

E.

C.

FIG. 55.

Trypanosonta Ziemanni, from the blood of the little owl. The stages
shown in Figs. 52- — 54 are passed inside the gnat. The spiral and pear-
shaped bodies of Fig. 54 pass from the gnat's proboscis into the blood of
the little owl, and grow there into the large forms here figured. A, B,
and C are females, destined to be fertilized by spermatozoa (see Fig. 21)
when swallowed by a gnat. D and E are male Trypanosomes, which will
give rise each to eight fertilizing individuals or spermatozoa as shown
in Fig. 56 — when swallowed by a gnat.

(phagocytes) of the blood ; and it is in the highest degree
probable that in this condition they have been observed in
some tropical diseases without their relation to the spiral
forms being suspected. The corpuscles lately described

THE SLEEPING SICKNESS

183

by Leishman, in cases of a peculiar Indian fever, are
very probably of this nature, as are also similar bodies
recently described in Delhi sore. On the whole, it may
safely be said that the researches of Dr. Schaudinn, of
which only a preliminary account has yet been published,
have widely modified our conceptions as to these blood-
parasites, and must lead to important discoveries in
regard to diseases caused by them in mammals and
in man.

The facts that wild game serve as a tolerant reservoir
of trypanosomes for the infection of domesticated animals

Male Trypanosoma Ziemanni, giving rise
by nuclear division to eight spermatozoa
or microgametes. From the stomach of
the gnat (Culex).

Each of these penetrates and fuses with
the substance of a female Trypanosome,
swallowed at the same time or already taken
in by the gnat. The fertilized animalculae
is the vermiform motile stage of Fig. 52,
A ; and so we return to the starting-point
of the cycle (after Schaudinn).

FIG. 56.

by the intermediary of the tsetze fly, and that native
children in malarial regions act the same part for the
malarial parasite and mosquito, suggest very strongly
that some tolerant reservoir of the sleeping-sickness
trypanosome may exist in the shape of a hitherto unsus-
pected mammal, bird, or insect. The investigation of
that hypothesis and the discovery of the reproductive and
secondary forms of the mammalian trypanosomes are the
matters which now most urgently call for the efforts of
capable medical officers. But we must not be sanguine
of rapid progress, since men of the scientific quality

184 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

needful for pursuing these enquiries are not numerous ;
and those who exist are not endowed with private
fortunes, as a rule. At the same time no attempt is
made by the British Government to take such men
into its pay, or to provide for the training and selection
of such officers.1

The relations of parasites to the organisms upon or in
which they are parasitic, and the relation of man, once
entered on the first steps of his career of civilisation, to
the world of parasites, form one of the most instructive
and fascinating chapters of natural history. It cannot
be fully written yet, but already some of the conclusions
to which the student is led in examining this subject have
far-reaching importance and touch upon great general
principles in an unexpected manner.

Before the arrival of man — the would-be controller,
the disturber of Nature — the adjustment of living things
to their surrounding conditions and to one another has a
certain appearance of perfection. Natural selection and
the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence
lead to the production of a degree of efficiency and
harmonious interaction of the units of the living world,
which, being based on the inexorable destruction of what
is inadequate and inharmonious as soon as it appears,
result in a smooth and orderly working of the great
machine, and the continuance by heredity of efficiency
and a high degree of individual perfection.

Parasites, whether microscopic or of larger size, are
not, in such circumstances, the cause of widespread
disease or suffering. The weakly members of a species
may be destroyed by parasites, as others are destroyed
by beasts of prey ; but the general community of the
species, thus weeded, is benefited by the operation. In
1 See footnote on p. 179.

THE SLEEPING SICKNESS 185

the natural world the inhabitants of areas bounded
by sea, mountain, and river become adjusted to one
another ; and a balance is established. The only dis-
turbing factors are exceptional seasons, unusual cold,
wet, or drought. Such recurrent factors may from time
to time increase the number of the weakly who are
unable to cope with the invasions of minute destructive
parasites, and so reduce, even to extermination the kinds
of animals or plants especially susceptible to such influ-
ences. But anything like the epidemic diseases of para-
sitic origin with which civilised man is unhappily familiar
seems to be due either to his own restless and ignorant
activity or, in his absence, to great and probably
somewhat sudden geological changes — changes of the
connexions, and therefore communications, of great land
areas.

It is abundantly evident that animals or plants which
have, by long aeons of selection and adaptation, become
adjusted to the parasites and the climatic conditions and
the general company (so to speak) of one continent may
be totally unfit to cope with those of another; just as
the Martian giants of Mr. H. G. Wells, though marvels of
offensive and defensive development, were helpless in the
presence of mundane putrefactive bacteria and were
rapidly and surely destroyed by them. Accordingly, it
is not improbable that such geological changes as the
junction of the North and South American continents, of
North and South Africa, and of various large islands and
neighbouring continents, have, in ages before the advent
of man, led to the development of disastrous epidemics.
It is not a far-fetched hypothesis that the disappearance
of the whole equine race from the American continent
just before or coincidently with the advent of man — a
egion where horses of all kinds had existed in greater

;;

186 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

variety than in any other part of the world — is due to the
sudden introduction, by means of some geological change,
of a deadly parasite which spread as an epidemic and
/ extinguished the entire horse population.

Whatever may have happened in past geological
epochs, by force of great earth-movements which rapidly
brought the adaptations of one continent into contact
with the parasites of another, it is quite certain that
man, proud man, ever since he has learnt to build a ship,
and even before that, when he made up his mind to march
aimlessly across continents till he could go no further,
has played havoc with himself and all sorts of his fellow-
beings by mixing up the products of one area with those
of another. Nowhere has man allowed himself — let
alone other animals or even plants — to exist in fixed local
conditions to which he or they have become adjusted.
With ceaseless restlessness he has introduced men and
beasts and plants from one land to another. He has
constantly migrated with his herds and his horses, from
continent to continent. Parasites, in themselves beneficent
purifiers of the race, have been thus converted into terrible
scourges and the agents of disease. Europeans are
decimated by the locally innocuous parasites of Africa ;
the South Sea islanders are exterminated by the compara-
tively harmless measles of Europe.

A striking example of the disasters brought about by
man's blind dealings with Nature — disasters which can
and will hereafter be avoided by the aid of science — is to
be found in the history of the insect phylloxera and the
vine. In America the vine had become adjusted to the
phylloxera larvae, so that when they nibbled its roots the
American vine threw out new root-shoots and was none
the worse for the little visitor. Man in his blundering
way introduced the American vine, and with it the

THE SLEEPING SICKNESS 187

phylloxera, to Europe ; and in three years half the vines
in France and Italy were destroyed by the phylloxera,
because the European vines had not been bred in associa-
tion with this little pest, and had not acquired the simple
adjusting faculty of throwing out new shoots.

But it is not only by his reckless mixing up of incom-
patibles from all parts of the globe that the unscientific
man has risked the conversion of paradise into a desert.
In his greedy efforts to produce large quantities of animals
and plants convenient for his purposes, and in his eager-
ness to mass and organise his own race for defence and
conquest, man has accumulated unnatural swarms of
one species in field and ranch and unnatural crowds of
his own kind in towns and fortresses. Such undiluted
masses of one organism serve as a ready field for the
propagation of previously rare and unimportant parasites
from individual to individual. Human epidemic diseases
as well as those of cattle and crops, are largely due to this
unguarded action of the unscientific man.

A good instance of this is seen in the history of the coffee
plantations of Ceylon, where a previously rare and obscure
parasitic fungus, leading an uneventful life in the tropical
forests of that country, suddenly found itself provided
with an unlimited field of growth and exuberance in the
coffee plantations. The coffee plantations were destroyed
by this parasite, which has now returned to its pristine ob-
scurity. Disharmonious, blundering man was responsible
for its brief triumph and celebrity. Dame Nature had
not allowed the coffee fungus more than a very moderate
scope. Man comes in and takes the reins ; disaster follows ;
and there is no possibility of return to the old regime.
Man must make his blunders and retrieve them by further
interference — by the full use of his intelligence, by the
continually increasing ingenuity of his control of the

L88 THE KINGDOM OF MAN

physical world, which he has ventured to wrest from the
old rule of natural selection and adaptation.

The adjustment of all living things to their proper
environment is one of great delicacy and often of sur-
prising limitation. In no living things is this more
remarkable than in parasites. The relation of a parasite
to the " host " or " hosts " in which it can flourish (often
the host is only one special species or even variety of plant
or animal) is illustrated by the more familiar restriction
of certain plants to a particular soil. Thus the Cornish
heath only grows on soil overlying the chemically pecu-
liar serpentine rocks of Cornwall. The two common
parasitic tape- worms of man pass their early life the one
in the pig and the other in bovine animals. But that
which requires the pig as its first host (T&nia solium)
cannot use a bovine animal as a substitute ; nor can the
other (Tcenia mediocanellata) exist in a pig. Yet the
difference of porcine and bovine flesh and juices is not a
very patent one ; it is one of small variations in highly
complex organic chemical substances. A big earth-worm-
like stomach-worm flourishes in man, and another kind
similar to it in the horse. • But that frequenting man
cannot exist in the horse, nor that of the horse in man.
Simpler parasites, such as are the moulds, bacteria, and
again the blood-parasites, trypanosoma, etc., exhibit ab-
solute restrictions as to the hosts in which they can or
can not flourish without showing specific changes in their
vital processes. Being far simpler in structure than the
parasitic worms, they have less " mechanism " at their dis-
posal for bringing about adjustment to varied conditions
of life. The microscopic parasites do not submit to
alterations in the chemical character of their surround-
ings without themselves reacting and showing changed
chemical activities. A change of soil (that is to say of

THE SLEEPING SICKNESS 189

host) may destroy them ; but, on the other hand, it may
lead to increased vigour and the most unexpected re-
action on their part in the production of virulent
chemical poisons.

We are justified in believing that until man introduced
his artificially selected and transported breeds of cattle
and horses into Africa there was no nagana disease. The
Trypanosoma Brucei lived in the blood of the big game
in perfect harmony with its host. So, too, it is probable
that the sleeping-sickness parasite flourished innocently in
a state of adjustment due to tolerance on the part of the
aboriginal men and animals of West Africa. It was not
until the Arab slave raiders, European explorers, and india-
rubber thieves stirred up the quiet populations of Central
Africa, and mixed by their violence the susceptible with
the tolerant races, that the sleeping-sickness parasite be-
came a deadly scourge — a " disharmony " to use the sug-
gestive term introduced by my friend Elias Metschnikow.

The adjustment of primaeval populations to their con-
ditions has also been broken down by " disharmonies " of
another kind, due to man's restless invention, as explained
a few years ago in the interesting book of Mr. Archdall
Reid on the " Present Evolution of Man." Not only does
the human race within given areas become adjusted to a
variety of local parasites, but it acquires a tolerance of
dangerous drugs, such as alcohol and opium, extracted by
man's ingenuity from materials upon which he operates.
A race thus provided and thus immune imposes, by its
restless migrations, on unaccustomed races the deadly
poisons to the consumption of which it is itself habituated.
The unaccustomed races are deteriorated or even exter-
minated by the poisons thus introduced.

Infectious disease, it was long ago pointed out, must
be studied from three main points of view : (i) the life

i go THE KINGDOM OF MAN

history and nature of the disease-germ or infective
matter ; (2) the infected subject, his repellant or tolerant
possibilities, and his predisposition or receptivity ; (3) the
intermediary or carrying agents. Whilst it is true that
little or nothing has been done by the State in acquiring
or making use of knowledge as to the first and second of
these factors, with a view to controlling the spread of
disease, it is the fact that much has been done both in the
way of investigation and administration in relation to
the third factor. The great public-health enquiries and
consequent legislation in this country, in which scientific
men of the highest qualifications, such as Simon, Farr,
Chadwick, and Parkes, took part during the Victorian
period, have had excellent results ; to them are due
the vast expenditure at the present day on pure water,
sewage disposal, and sanitary inspection. But little or
nothing has been done in regard to the first and second
divisions of the subject, in which the less organised
portions of the British Empire are more deeply con-
cerned than in waterworks and sewer-pipes. It is still
contested whether leprosy (which is a serious scourge
in the British Empire, though expelled from our own
islands) is a matter of predisposition caused by diet or
solely due to contagion ; and yet it is left to individual
practitioners to work out the problem. The State prepares
vaccine lymph in a cheap and unsatisfactory way for the
use of its, till recently, compulsorily vaccinated citizens ;
but the State, though thus interfering in the matter of
vaccine, has spent no money to study effectively and so to
improve the system of vaccination. Here and there some
temporary and ineffective enquiry has been subsidised by
a Government office ; but there is no great army of in-
vestigators working in the best possible laboratories, led
by the ablest minds of the day, with the constant object

THE SLEEPING SICKNESS 191

of improving and developing in new directions the system
of inoculation. Surely if compulsion, or every pressure
short of compulsion, is justified in enforcing vaccine in-
oculation on every British family, it would be only
reasonable and consistent to expend a million or so a
year in the perfection and intelligent control of this
remedy by the most skilled investigators. Yet not a
halfpenny is spent by the British Government in this
way. Medicine is organised in this country by its
practitioners as a fee-paid profession ; but as a neces-
sary and invaluable branch of the public service it is
neglected, misunderstood, and rendered to a large extent
futile by inadequate funds and consequent lack of capable
leaders. The defiant desperate battle which civilised man
wages with Nature must go on ; but man's suffering and
loss in the struggle — the delay in his ultimate triumph —
depend solely on how much or how little the great civilised
communities of the world seek for increased knowledge
of nature as the basis of their practical administration
and government.

POSTSCRIPT, December, 1906. — Messrs. Thomas and
Breinl, of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine,
two years ago discovered and published the fact that
an arsenical aniline product known as " atoxyl " when
injected into patients suffering from Sleeping Sickness
destroys the parasite and promises to be a cure for
this terrible infection. Experiments are in progress
in many quarters in regard to this treatment, but cer-
tainty can only be arrived at by prolonged observation
of the patients. The newspapers have lately, in error,
attributed this discovery to Dr. Robert Koch of Berlin,
who has merely confirmed the observations of the earlier
workers. — E. R. L.

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