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GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

POPULAR WORKS ON SCIENCE
BY SIR RAY LANKESTER, K.C.B., F.R.S.

Published by Methuen & Co. Ltd.
Diversions of a Naturalist. 7s. 6d. net.
Science from an Easy Chair. 7s. 6d. net.
Science from an Easy Chair. Second Series.
7s. 6d. net.

Secrets of Earth and Sea. 8s. 6d. net.

Published by the Rationalist Press Association
The Kingdom of Man. is.

From a Photograph of the Young Gorilla, “John” (1920).
Frontispiece J

GREAT AND SMALL
THINGS

Sir RAY LANKESTER

K.C.B., F.R.S.

WITH THIRTY-EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS

METHUEN & CO. LTD.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON

First Published in IQ23

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

PREFACE

THE title of this little book is, I venture to say,
appropriate to a miscellaneous collection of short
papers in which subjects of widely differing interest
are briefly brought to the reader’s attention. They all
relate to the study of living things ranging from the
phagocyte to the gorilla, from the pond-snail to the
Russian giant, from facts about longevity to theories as
to human progress and the cruelty of Nature. Most
of the chapters were written originally for publication in
daily and weekly journals and have been now to some
extent re-written and illustrated by text figures for the
present volume.

I am indebted to the proprietor of The Field for the
two portraits of John the Gorilla which illustrate my
article on that rnuch-loved animal — published in that
paper.

E. RAY LANKESTER

December 1922

72575

CONTENTS

CHAP. page

I. The Gorilla of Sloane Street . . . i

II. Science and the Film . . . .16

III. The Phagocytes, or Eater-Cells . . .29

IV. Some Pond-Snails . . . . .38

V. Pond-Snails and Blood-Red . . .47

VI. The Pond-Snail’s Flea . . . -55

VII. The Liver-Fluke . . . . -65

VIII. Progress! . . . . . .74

IX. Is Nature Cruel? . . . . .83

X. The Senses and Sense-Organs . . .95

XI. An Eye at the Back of the Head . . 106

XII. Other Eyes . . . . . .113

XIII. The Paired Eyes of Man . . . .118

XIV. Wasps . 123

XV. An Unwarranted Fancy . . , -131

XVI. Spider-Sense and Cat-Sense . . .138

XVII. Two Experiments . . . . .149

XVIII, The Last of the Alchemists . . .156

vii

viii GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

CHAP. PAGE

XIX. Extreme Old Age . . . . .161

XX. Longevity . . . . . .170

XXI. Metchnikoff on Old Age . . . .178

XXII. Giants . . . . . . .196

XXIII. Morphology and Monsters . . .204

XXIV. Morphology and Monsters (continued.) . . 214

XXV. Various Kinds of Monsters . . .224

XXVI. Tobacco . . . . . .233

XXVII. Cerebral Inhibition .... 241

Index ....... 243

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The Young Gorilla “John” (1920) . . .Frontispiece

FIG. PAGE

1. Profile of the Young Gorilla “John” . . 2

2. Views of the Plantar Surface of the Foot —

A, of a Lemur ; B, of an Old-World Monkey ;

C, of a Gorilla ..... 8

3. A, View of the Plantar Surface of a Human

Foot; B is a Reproduction of the “Tread”
or “Print” of a Human Foot . . -9

4. Outline Drawing of the Upper Face of the

Human Foot and its Relation to the Leg . 9

5. Figures from a Cinema Film of a rapidly moving

Amceba ....... 31

6. Comparison of an Amceba (A) and a Colourless

Blood Corpuscle or Phagocyte (B) . . 32

7. Successive Changes of Form of a Colourless

Corpuscle or “Phagocyte” from the Blood
of Man ....... 33

8. Successive Changes of Form of a Colourless

Corpuscle or Phagocyte of the Frog’s Blood 34

9. The Out-Wandering of a Phagocyte through the

Delicate Wall of a Blood-Vessel (Capillary)
of the Frog . . . . . -35

9 {bis). A Large Phagocyte of the Guinea-Pig . 36

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

FIG.

io. The Sea-Snail called Natica ....
ir. The Common Pond-Snail, LimnaEA Stagnalis

12. The Lingual Ribbon or “Tongue” of the Common

Whelk .......

13. Flat-Coiled Pond-Snail, Planorbis Corneus

14. Running Water Pond-Snail, Paludina Vivipara .

15. Cyclostoma Elegans, a Land-living Operculate

Snail as seen when expanded from its Shell

AND CRAWLING ......

16. A Snail (closely allied to Cyclostoma) withdrawn

into its Shell, which is seen to be closed
by the Spirally-marked Operculum

17. To show the “Absorption Bands” seen in the

“ Spectrum ” of Sunlight which has passed

THROUGH A WEAK SOLUTION IN WATER OF BLOOD-

Red or Haemoglobin .....

18. Crystals of the Red Colouring Matter of the

Blood Corpuscles, known as “Blood-Red” or
Haemoglobin ......

19. The Little Worm, ChaEtogaster LimNaEaE, which

lives like a Flea on the Body of the Pond-
Snails, LimNaEA and Planorbis

20. A, Adult Completed Form of ChaEtogaster

LimNaEaE; B, Fissiparous Larval or Young
Stage <3f the Same .

21. Fan -like Bundle of Bristles, Twenty-two in

Number, from the Head-Region of the Adult
or Sexually Mature ChaEtogaster LimNaEaE .

22. The Uncleft “Genital” Bristles of an Adult

CHaETOGASTER LimNaEaE .

PAGE

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FIG.

22 (bis). Fission of Marine Annelids

23. The Life-History of the Liver-Fluke, Distomum

Hepaticum ......

24. Upper Surface of the Head of the Green Lizard,

Lacerta Viridis .

25. The Upper Surface of the Bony Skull of the

Same Lizard ......

26. The “Third” Eye, or Pineal Eye, of the Green

Lizard .......

27. The Same as Fig. 26, but the Eyeball and its

Stalk now shown in Section

28. Dorsal Surface of the Skull of an Ichthyosaurus

29. Section through the Lateral Eye of a Scorpion

30. Section through the Open Cup-like Eye of the

Limpet .......

31. Section through the Closed Spherical Eye of a

Land-Snail ......

32. Diagram of a Section through a Highly Developed

Eye representing that either of a Vertebrate

OR OF A CEPHALOPOD CUTTLE-FlSH .

33. Eye of the Pearly Nautilus . . . .

34. Diagrams of the Actual Development of One of

the Paired Eyes of a Vertebrate

PAGE

107

109

”3

1 16

1 17

119

35. Development of the Eye of a Cuttle-Fish

120

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

CHAPTER I

THE GORILLA OF SLOANE STREET

AS the frontispiece to this volume, and as a text-
figure (Fig. i) in the present chapter, we have
reproductions of two photographic portraits of
a young gorilla. They are taken from a youngjmale,
probably a little less than five years old, which was
brought by a French officer from the Gaboon and was
purchased from him by the well-known dealer, Mr.
Hamlyn, in July 1918. The gorilla was acquired by
another owner (Major Penny) in December of that year,
and was taken charge of by a lady (Miss Cunningham)
who carried on a milliner’s business in Sloane Street.

I am indebted to her for my personal acquaintance with
“ John ” and for many details as to his tastes and habits.
She was remarkably successful in the management of
this most interesting lodger. “ John,” as he was called,
was thoroughly healthy and happy, and presented a
great contrast to the sickly-looking anthropoids which
are kept in cages in stuffy, overheated rooms in most
zoological gardens. John enjoyed — in fact, owed his
healthy condition to — fresh air and human society. He
was taught to be perfectly clean, and had no taint of
the monkey-house about him. He was fairly obedient,
though requiring “ an eye on him ” to keep him out
of mischief. He had his own room and bed, a garden

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

to play in, a tree to climb (an exercise in which he did
not excel), and he took his meals regularly in company.

Fig. i. — Profile of the young Gorilla “ John.’'

He was never left to mope alone, and was only separated
from human companionship at night when he went to
bed. He was very affectionate, good-natured, and in-

THE GORILLA OF SLOANE STREET

telligent, with, of course, preferences and aversions and
some curious “ terrors.” A certain child’s gollywog was
for long a bogy to him, and was used as such to keep
him from wandering. He passed through the winter ot
1918-19 in perfect health, the ordinary temperature of
a dwelling-house being apparently quite warm enough
for him. In the summer he went up with an attendant in
a motor-car regularly, on three days of the week, to the
Zoological Gardens in Regent’s Park, and was on view
in one of the open cages kindly placed at his disposal
by the lions. He was, however, miserable while there,
and eagerly awaited his return journey to Sloane Street.

He was very exclusive and dainty about food —
perhaps owing to the fact that he had not been long
trained by the example of his parents and relatives before
he left the Gaboon. He ate all kinds of fruit (oranges,
bananas, apples, raspberries, etc.), and took milk readily
— also the white of a boiled egg, but rejected the yolk.
He was dubious about roots (carrots, potatoes, turnips),
and showed no taste for meat, though he would eat a
little boiled fish. He rejected farinaceous food, but
sweets — especially jam — were very welcome to him.
He ate flowers — I have seen him help himself to and eat
a dozen roses, one after the other — being attracted by
their scent. A weakness for perfume led him to eat
scented soap ; but in this he was not encouraged.
Butter and pea-nut butter, dried dates, figs, raisins,
prunes, Virol, and jellies of all sorts he loved. He took
very little bread, whilst — contrary to what one would
expect — nuts of any kind gave him terrible indigestion
and pain. He soon got tired of any one food, and the
lady who managed him believed that the secret of success
with him was great variation in diet. He was very
fond of tea and coffee. When it was cold he slept with

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

a blanket over him, as his room was not specially heated.
When sleeping, he lay on his back with arms and legs
folded, but often on his side with his hand under his
head. He would smile (some would say “ grin ”),
giggle when tickled, and also roll on the floor and cry
like a spoiled child when one refused to take him on to
one’s knee. He made other sounds, difficult to describe,
signifying satisfaction, surprise, fright, and anger. Like
a child, he was very fond of “ showing off,” and would
repeatedly climb on to a table in order to take full-length
dives into a spring-stuffed sofa close at hand, and then
turn head over heels, laugh, and clap his hands. He
was a restless little fellow and never tired of taking one
by the hand and making one walk by his side until he
brought one to the window, which he would unfasten
and open, or to the door, upon which he would beat a
tattoo, or to some piece of furniture, or to the staircase,
where he would eagerly display his gymnastic capacities.

But the most interesting thing he would do when
excited and “ showing off ” was to stand up and beat
his chest alternately with right and left hand at the rate
of about four blows to the second. I was greatly aston¬
ished and pleased when he behaved thus on my first visit
to him in Sloane Street. I believe that no one has
testified to this behaviour on the part of a gorilla since
Paul Du Chaillu described it. I knew that much-
maligned little man, Paul Du Chaillu, very well. He
was a genuine naturalist and observer, and brought
many new things to London from the Gaboon (where he
had business connections) besides the skins and skulls
of gorillas and chimpanzees ( e.g . the great water insecti-
vore Potamogale). Later he wrote an interesting book
on Norway and early Norse art. But he did not know the
English language when he first came to London, and

THE GORILLA OF SLOANE STREET

he entrusted his notes and diary of travels to an American
assistant who made a hash of them — confusing dates and
itineraries. Du Chaillu’s genuine experiences were so
novel and entertaining that when inconsistencies were
discovered in his dates and the details of his journeys,
he was assailed by malicious critics as a second Munc¬
hausen. Special discredit and ridicule were given to
his account of the male gorilla beating his breast in
defiance and advancing to attack the adventurous hunter.
Huxley — whose account of the anthropoid apes in his
book “ Man’s Place in Nature ” is still the best we have
— is careful to state that he sees no reason to disbelieve
Du Chaillu’s account of the habits of the gorilla, and in
especial of this “ breast-beating ” habit. It is an inter¬
esting fact that the gorilla’s close relative, the chim¬
panzee, has never been seen to beat its breast, and that
the young gorilla John exhibited this proof of his
paternity as soon as he got a little bit “ puffed up ” by
admiring attention.

John’s height when standing in a normal position
(that is to say, bending forward a little) was, in January
1920, 2 inches less than 3 feet. He measured from hip
to head 21 inches, and from hip to heel 17 inches. He
grew considerably during the year 1919, but no records
were kept of his height nor of his weight. His face was
absolutely black, with the exception of the lips. The
surface of this black skin was bright and polished, re¬
flecting the light. The fur was a dark brown. By his
jet-black face he differed from the chimpanzee of Sierra
Leone, which has a pale muzzle, and from the more
or less pinky-brown-faced varieties of chimpanzee from
the Gaboon. The bald chimpanzee called “ Nschiego-
mbouve ” (its local name) by Du Chaillu has a black
face, and is perhaps entitled to recognition as a sub-

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

species or variety of chimpanzee under the name
“ calvus.” “ Sally,” the chimpanzee who lived for six
years at the Gardens in Regent’s Park, and was con¬
stantly visited and studied by me, was one of this race,
and, in spite of her black face, differed greatly in
physiognomy and character, as well as in “ size-
for-age,” from the gorilla John.

Our photographs of John show two characteristic
features in which the gorilla differs from the chimpanzee
— namely, the relatively much smaller size of the ear
and the prominence of the large expanded nostrils, a
feature not properly seen in “ stuffed ” specimens. The
attitude of John when walking was practically the
same as that of the chimpanzee, the body being sup¬
ported on the knuckles of the flexed hands (contrary to
the original statements of Dr. Savage), whilst the feet
were turned with the soles inward, the weight resting
on the outer margin of the foot and heel, the great toe
and the smaller toes being turned inwards, slightly
flexed and not applied to the ground. It is, however,
the fact that John not unfrequently stood and sometimes
walked with the sole and heel applied as a flat surface to
the ground — the “ plantar ” face of the toes also being
applied to the supporting surface — the great toe ex¬
tending inwards, its axis forming, on the horizontal plane,
a right angle with that of the diverging group of smaller
toes. Mr. Pocock informs me that chimpanzees also
sometimes walk or stand with the foot and toes thus
applied to the ground, and he has seen them when
sitting down, swing their feet alternately and beat the
floor of their cage with the flat of the foot, for the purpose
of making a rhythmical “ noise.”

The hallux, or great toe of man, is derived from an

THE GORILLA OF SLOANE STREET

ancestor with a large hallux, which has been trans¬
mitted equally to man and to the anthropoid apes. But
in man the foot has become so modified that the mechani¬
cal axis of the hind-limb is continued through the
hallux, which in turn is directed forward (instead of to
the inner face of the limb) so as to effect this result. The
great ridge-line of the shin bone’s edge is continued, with¬
out divergence from its straight course, by the tendons of
the hallux at the instep to the end of that toe in an un¬
distorted human foot (Fig. 4). Man’s foot is not planti¬
grade like that of the baboons and bears, in which the
axial line of the limb passes between the third and
fourth digits. Nor does it show any trace of having
ever been capable of “ grasping ” by the thumb-like
movement of the hallux across the plantar surface as in
apes. It is hallucigrade or halluci-axial — the smaller
ineffective group of toes being thrown by the special
development of the human hind-limb away from the
axial line of the limb and hallux to its outer side — as
one may see by looking at one’s own naked foot pointed
forward as in the act of stepping (Figs. 2, 3, and 4).
The difference in the form and mechanism of the foot of
man and of the man-like apes is more profound than is
any other structural difference which separates them.
We have no knowledge of any intermediate condition of
the foot — no trace of any connecting link nor of the
history of the development of the human foot.1

1 An entirely erroneous figure of the gorilla’s foot is given by Mr.
Akeley in an interesting article in " The World’s Work ” of October
1922. He gives valuable observations on the habits of the gorilla
made when hunting this animal in the neighbourhood of Lake Kivu,
in Central Africa. He made casts of the head, hands, and feet of
specimens killed by him. But the cast of the foot is (as shown in
a photograph) strangely distorted and made to present a false re¬
semblance to the foot of man. Since Mr. Akeley was securing speci¬
mens of gorilla for the American Museum in New York, it is well that
his mistake about the gorilla’s foot should be corrected at once.

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

A careful and detailed anatomical comparison of the
foot of man and that of the man-like apes should, it
seems probable, enable a morphologist of imagination
to determine what has been the most probable ancestral
history of both, and what was the structure and
mechanical adaptation of the foot of their common

Fig. 2. — Views of the plantar surface of the foot. A, of a Lemur
(Propithecus diadema — a species which habitually walks on its
hind-legs) ; B, of an Old-World Monkey (Cercopithecus) ; C, of a
Gorilla, represented as of approximately the same length. They
are intended to show the proportionate size of the great toe (very
large) and of the other toes in each kind, and also to show the
natural position of the great toe when the animal is standing on
the flat or plantar surface of the foot. Note the wide gap
between the great toe and the second toe. (Reproduced by per¬
mission from drawings published by Mr. Pocock, F.R.S.)

ancestor. No such attempt to imagine the ancestral
modifications of the human foot has yet been made with
adequate employment of existing data. Such facts as
the correlation of variation of the fore- and the hind-limb,
and therefore the history of the thumb as well as of the
great toe, would have to be considered. The history of
the modification of the fore- and hind-foot in other

THE GORILLA OF SLOANE STREET

groups, besides that of the Primates, must be searched for
suggestions as to their history in man and the anthro-

A, view of the plantar surface of a
human foot — to compare with Fig.
2. The great toe is much larger
proportionately to the other toes
than in the gorilla ; the gap between
the great toe and second toe is
very greatly lessened, and the great
toe is not directed away from the
mechanical axis of the foot, but is
traversed by it.

B is a reproduction of the “ tread ”
or “ print ” of a human foot,
obtained by inking the plantar
surface and then letting the foot
tread on a flat sheet of paper.

t§ A,

'Tf? 4 M

A ' ’

JSm§

■■ .

' -7

Fig. 4. — Outline drawing
of the upper face of
the human foot and
its relation to the leg,
showing the continua¬
tion of the shin-ridge
or tibial axis by the
great toe.

poids. Form and proportions of the digits and of the
tarsal bones, as puzzling as those of man and possibly
capable of throwing light on the history of the human

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

foot, are shown by the great extinct Australian Marsupial
Diprotodon exhibited in the Natural History Museum.
This animal had a huge massive heel-bone and very
small digits, resembling those of man. (See my “ Extinct
Animals,” fig. 135.) Man’s conception of the ground
plan and mechanism of his own foot has varied at
different times and in different races — as is shown by
the differing and often injurious forms of “ foot-wear,”
the “ sandals,” boots and shoes of past and present
times. The “ sandal ” does not distort the natural
disposition of the toes : the large gap between the great
toe and the second toe is maintained, and a fastening
strap passes through it. But the leather shoe and the
wooden sabot both ignore the true and natural pose
of the great toe and squeeze all the toes together, so
as to give a false “ point ” to the distorted foot in the
line of the second toe — an artificial axis.

The question as to whether there is one or more
species of gorilla is in a state similar to that as to the
species of chimpanzees. It is stated that specimens
from different localities differ in the colour of the hair and
its abundance, and also in size and in the development of
the bony crests in the skull of the male. But we have
not a sufficient number of specimens nor such detailed
information with regard to these varieties as to warrant
any conclusion as to the existence even of well-marked
local varieties. On the other hand, such local varieties
or sub-species are very common among the larger
African mammalia, and may occur among gorillas.
There is no doubt that the hair of the gorilla becomes
lighter and decidedly grey with age.

As to the size attained by the gorilla, exaggerated
estimates have been given by measuring from the top

THE GORILLA OF SLOANE STREET 11

(crown) of the head to the tip of the toes of the stretched
foot (which is of great length), instead of to the heel.
The adult male measured from the heel is from about
5 ft. 2 in. to nearly 6 ft. in exceptional cases, but in the
natural position with knuckles on the ground the animal
would stand from 4 ft. to 4! ft. high. A specimen
measuring 5 ft. 5 in- from the heel to the crown weighed
500 lb. (35 st. 10 lb.) — a fact which gives an indication
of its heavy, unwieldy figure, the body being relatively
to the legs much larger than in man. The average height
of females (heel to crown) is 4 ft. 6 in.

Gorillas have been brought from time to time to the
Zoological Society’s Gardens, but have not lived long.
The following is a list of such specimens kindly given
me by Mr. Pocock : Male , purchased October 1887 ;
lived two months. Female , purchased March 1896 ;
lived five months. Female (baby), purchased August
1904 ; lived three weeks. Female (about six years old),
purchased August 1904 ; lived five weeks. Female ,
deposited August 1905 ; sent to America after ten days.
Female (baby), deposited in March 1906 ; lived barely
two months. Male (baby), deposited in March 1908 ;
lived one week.

Recently the Zoological Society of Dublin had a
young specimen which lived for three years in the
Society’s menagerie. It is difficult to discover records
of gorillas in continental menageries, or of any which
may have been in the hands of showmen. A female is,
however, stated to have lived for seven years in Breslau,
and it would be interesting to have any trustworthy notes
about that specimen. At the Berlin Gardens one was
kept for about twelve months. Hagenbeck, the dealer
and owner of the celebrated Gardens near Berlin, spent

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

£600 on gorillas in one season, and then, as he told
Mr. Pocock, dropped them as a hopeless investment,
because they die so quickly ! The one case of the
female at Breslau shows that there may be individual
qualities or methods of management — of which I should
be glad to hear — which favour the survival of the gorilla
when brought to Northern Europe.

It is of some interest to note that the name “ gorilla ”
was given to this animal in 1847 by Dr. Savage, a
missionary who lived for many years in the Gaboon and
gave a very full description of the animal. The word
“ gorilla ” is applied in an extant ancient Greek work
giving an account of the voyage of Hanno the Cartha¬
ginian in the fifth or sixth century B.C., to certain hairy
savage people discovered by him in an island on the
African coast. Dr. Savage used this name for the
larger of the two apes of the Gaboon without committing
himself to the suggestion that this ape was the creature
seen by Hanno, and at that date so-called by the more
affable natives. It is indeed the general opinion, at
present, that Hanno’s “ gorillas ” were baboons— the
word “ drill ” now used for them ( [e.g . mandrill) being
possibly related to the earlier term “ go-rilla.” The
present native name in the Gaboon for the gorilla is
enje-ena, whilst enje-eko is the name of the smaller of the
two apes — the chimpanzee. At an earlier date (1625)
we learn from “ Purchas his Pilgrimes,” in the relation
of the strange adventures of one Andrew Battell, who
for eighteen years was a prisoner of the Portuguese in
Angola, that “ the woods are covered with baboons,
monkeys, apes, and parrots,” and “ that here also are
two kinds of monsters which are common in these woods
and very dangerous. The greatest of these two monsters
is called Pongo in their language and the lesser is called

THE GORILLA OF SLOANE STREET 13

Engeco.” Battell then proceeds to give a vivid descrip¬
tion of the “ pongo,” which leaves no doubt that it is
the gorilla of our nomenclature — the enje-ena of the
modern natives — to which he refers as the pongo, whilst
the smaller “ monster ” is the chimpanzee, still known
to the natives by the name “ enjeco,” which, according
to Buffon, has been corrupted by Europeans into “ en-
jocko ” and “ jocko.”

The confusion of the two African apes with the
Oriental orang-utan, and the embarrassing interchange
both of their native and scientific appellations by
learned zoologists of the past, form a story which
may be read in Huxley’s “ Man’s Place in Nature.” I
am only concerned here to say a brief word about the
scientific names applied to the gorilla and his smaller
associate, the chimpanzee. There is some disagreement
in the zoological world as to the “ correct ” name to be
used for these animals when scientific accuracy is desired.
The actual decision in these matters is dependent on
priority, and so eventually on history. But I will
merely say that it seems to me inconvenient to place the
gorilla and the chimpanzee (that is, the enje-enas and
the enje-ekos) in one genus, Troglodytes. I prefer
the practice of those who call the bigger ape Gorilla
savagei (after its first careful describer), and leave the
chimpanzee alone in the genus Troglodytes. But the
latter is usually called by the specific name “ niger,”
which seems to be open to correction (according to strict
rules), because he is remarkable for being (as a rule) not
black but pale-faced. I should therefore wish to call
him Troglodytes enjecko. It would no doubt be con¬
venient to use the specific name “ enjena ” for the gorilla,
and so respect the native authorities who long ago dis¬
tinguished the two great African apes as “ en-jena ”

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

and “ en-jecko.” It is desirable to enumerate, and for
that purpose to name each of the observed varieties
respectively of Gorilla savagei and of Troglodytes enjecko,
but to call each of those varieties a distinct species is not
consistent with the practice of zoologists in regard to
other groups of animals.

I regret to have to state that, owing to the expense
involved in keeping John in a private house and the
natural anxiety as to whether he could be kept at all in
such conditions when he reached maturity, his owner
was induced to sell him, in the belief that he was to be
specially cared for in a warm climate. He was taken
by his new proprietor to the United States, and became
very ill owing to his separation from the friend who had
hitherto cared for him and loved him. The temporary
separation of a few hours, when (in the summer of 1920)
he used to be taken to the Zoological Gardens in London,
had always caused him great distress. This novel and
complete exile utterly prostrated him ; it deprived him of
all spirit and appetite. An atack of pneumonia killed
him soon after his arrival in America. I agree with
those who hold that a grave responsibility is undertaken
when the attempt is made to bring up a wild animal
in a cage or even in the enclosed paddocks of a secluded
park. Fortunately there are many animals which can
be easily brought up in captivity in complete health
and happiness. But there are others which require very
special conditions. Among these latter are the man¬
like apes, which require companionship and friendship
in order to thrive. The gorilla is the most sensitive among
them, and at the same time the most difficult to deal
with, on account of the great size and strength to which
it attains after*a few years of growth, and the probability
of its developing hostility to its human associates and

THE GORILLA OF SLOANE STREET 15

consequent “ ferocity ” after the age of puberty. It
must be a terrible thing to have to destroy a trustful,
happy animal, such as was John the young gorilla, when
it approaches full growth and maturity. Yet it seems
that there are only two other courses which can be
pursued by those who, not being millionaires, have re¬
moved such animals from their native forests and
successfully nurtured them during their youth — namely
(i) the animals may be returned to their original sur¬
roundings and set at liberty before reaching full growth,
or else (2) kept in iron-barred cages as prisoners. In
the former case they would probably die from want of
habituation to those original conditions, unable to find
food or to cope with their wild relatives ; in the latter
case they would pine and die after a more or less pro¬
longed endurance of the misery resulting from loss of
companionship and liberty. I confess that it seems to me
that no one should “ adopt ” a young gorilla who is not
possessed of a large income and able to pay for skilled
attendants and courageous companions for him when
he is “ grown up.” Perhaps there would be a chance
of success if a happy pair could be provided for — within
an enclosed park in a tropical or sub-tropical climate !
That would be a very costly experiment, but it is the
only one which offers the chance of healthy life to a
captive gorilla.

[Miss Alyse Cunningham, who tended and taught John for two
years, has published in the “Bulletin of the Zoological Society of New
York,” September 1921, a full account of him, illustrated by several
excellent photographs, of which the most attractive shows John
seated by his playmate — a little girl three years old.]

CHAPTER II

SCIENCE AND THE FILM

IT is only equitable that the great industry of cinema-
film production should give valuable help to the
investigation of nature — since it owes its own
existence to the persevering inquiries of scientific men
seeking to ascertain exactly the movements of the legs
of the horse when engaged in that rapid action which is
called the “ gallop.”

About forty years ago, photography was advanced
to a new position of power by two discoveries — that of
the dry plate or film and that of the means of rendering
instantaneous exposure effective in place of the long
exposure previously necessary. Not only was the
venerable science of astronomy rejuvenated by these
discoveries, which enabled the astronomer to print the
photographic records of hundreds of thousands of stars
invisible to the human eye, even when fortified by the
most powerful telescopes, but the study of movement of
all kinds — from that of the waves of the sea, to that of
the limbs of the swiftest animals, including the most
fleeting expressions of the human face and the flickering
of the “ cilia ” of the minutest animalcules scarcely
visible with the highest powers of the microscope —
entered upon a totally new path. It became not only
possible but easy to obtain by instantaneous photo-

SCIENCE AND THE FILM

graphy, a series of successive permanent pictures of a
quickly changing scene at the rate of twenty or more in
the second, showing what the eye is not quick enough to
distinguish — namely, the detailed phases and succession
of the movements which follow one another so rapidly
as to elude our attempts to see more than their general
result. In the special case studied, namely, the gallop¬
ing horse, a blurred eye-picture of moving parts, now
here, now there, defying our efforts to disentangle the
order and significance of their movement, was resolved
by the series of instantaneous photographs into sharply
cut definite shapes following one another with per¬
fect regularity and order and comprehensible as the
successive phases of the continued movement thus
analysed.

The “ problem of the galloping horse,” which had
long engaged the attention of artists, sportsmen, and
experimentalists, was thus solved by the American
photographer, Muybridge. It had been maintained
that in the “ gallop ” the horse never has all four feet off
the ground : others held that the “ flying gallop,” with
fore- and hind-limbs fully stretched and all the feet free
from contact with the ground, as depicted in Herring’s
well-known “ racing plates ” of last century, was a
correct representation of one phase of the movement of
the legs of the galloping horse. Large wagers were
actually offered and taken as to the facts in dispute. I
have discussed this matter at length elsewhere (“ Science
from an Easy Chair,” Second Series, 1912), and will
here merely recall the fact that by using carefully con¬
trived apparatus — consisting of a row of cameras placed
at intervals along a running track, the shutters of which
were opened and closed electrically by the passage of
the horse in front of them — Muybridge succeeded in

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

obtaining a series of accurately timed photographic
pictures of the galloping horse, each taken by about
i~40th of a second’s exposure and separated from its
predecessor and from its successor by an equally short
interval. The true series of movements made by the
horse’s legs in the action, or “ gait,” known as “ the
gallop,” were thus accurately recorded. It was shown
that the legs never assume simultaneously the posi¬
tion represented in “ the flying gallop ” — nor any
position resembling it - — - although all four legs do
simultaneously leave the ground for the fraction of a
second and are curiously flexed beneath the animal’s
body.

And then came the moment in history when this
photographic investigation of animal movement gave
birth to the vast industry known as the “ cinemato¬
graph,” “ biograph,” or “ movies.” When lecturing in
London and showing his series of instantaneous photo¬
graphs of the horse (and of other animals, including
man), Muybridge (whom I often met at the time) was
led to make the experiment (first tried at the Royal
Institution in Albemarle Street) of viewing his photo¬
graphs by the then well-known device called the
“ Zoetrope,” or “ Wheel of Life.” The “ Zoetrope ” is
a hollow cylinder a foot and a half in diameter, turning
on a vertical axis rapidly and having its surface pierced
with a number of vertical slots. Round the interior is
arranged a paper band of pictures representing success¬
ive phases of a figure in movement, such as a dancer
or a juggler or a running animal. When the cylinder
is rotated an observer looking through the slots sees the
figure apparently in motion. The figures were printed
or painted in black “ silhouette ” on the paper bands
supplied with the “ Zoetrope ” by dealers. Muybridge

SCIENCE AND THE FILM

substituted for these hand-painted figures his series
of instantaneous photographs of the galloping horse
The detached, queer and awkward-looking, but faithful,
instantanees gave, when looked at through the slot as
the cylinder revolved at the appropriate rate, a single
moving picture of the galloping horse, formed by the
fusion in the observer’s visual apparatus of the rapidly
passing photographs. It was easy to throw the pictures
on the screen by a slight modification of the “ Zoetrope ”
and the use of the electric lantern, and thus the first
“ cinema show ” was created.

The subsequent development of the modern
“ cinema ” was brought about by the invention of the
celluloid roll-film, on which a series of many thousands of
consecutive pictures are impressed by instantaneou
photography, the sensitized film being moved across the
focal plane and exposed intermittently. The film is
developed and printed off in a permanent condition on
similar celluloid films, which are then put through the
exhibition camera for projection, with vast enlargement,
on a distant screen. They are “ jerked ” through it with
the same intermittence, and at the same rate as that at
which the photographs were taken ; or, if desired, more
quickly or more slowly.

Permanent Records. — The cinema appeals to the
scientific investigator because it offers to him two distinct
and widely separate new means of gaining knowledge.
The first is that of obtaining records of the movements
of all sorts of animate and inanimate things as they
affect our vision — permanent pictures of “ the fleeting
scene,” showing things actually moving and changing
in shape and position as we see them with our eyes

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

and as we could only, until the cinema came to our
aid, recall or memorize by lengthy and necessarily in¬
adequate words or by series of hand-made drawings.
Many “ cinema ” records which are of value to science
have already been made, and many more are yet to be
made.

Among these are those of the dances and other
movements of remote races of mankind, such as are
practised by the natives of Central Australia, recorded
in cinema films, and shown to us here in London by
Sir Baldwin Spencer, F.R.S., a few years ago (1914).
In Sir Baldwin’s exhibition, the realization of an ex¬
tremely remote and inaccessible phase of humanity, was
greatly aided by the use of the phonograph, which gave
to us the rhythmical chant or song of the “ black
fellows,” taken simultaneously with the film pictures of
their ceremonial dancing. A knowledge of the dances
and ceremonials of primitive people is of very great
importance to the science of anthropology, and unless
such records are taken now we shall never get them :
for the customs of primitive people die out and disappear
even more rapidly than the people themselves. Again,
in the same way the cinema can give us invaluable records
of the habits and movements of wild animals destined
soon to disappear and even now remote from us and
difficult of access. To a very small extent such films
have been taken, but there is need for more determined
work of the kind, carried out systematically and thor¬
oughly, with scientific purpose and professional skill
Another wonderful series of movements which are but
rarely open to our inspection are those of microscopic
organisms. They can be filmed, and so “ recorded,”
by the combination of microscope and cinema-camera.
Those produced by Messrs. Pathe, of Paris, especi-

SCIENCE AND THE FILM 21

ally those of blood parasites, have a real value for
science.

Slowing-down of Movement.— The other kind of
service rendered by the cinema to science is in a way
accidental or unintentional. The cinema show contains
in fact “ more than meets the eye of man.” The desire
to analyse the movements of the galloping horse led to
the making of the moving pictures of the cinema show.
And now the cinema films printed with thousands of
instantaneous photographs in series — to be used merely
to produce a moving picture — offer to the scientific in¬
quirer the analysis of the various movements seen in the
picture in a most convenient form. Each instantaneous
photograph on the film furnishes the observer with an
instantaneous phase of this or that movement. The
movements are, in fact, analysed into their constituent
phases, lasting each but i~40th of a second or less.
Although in practice these separate instantaneous pictures
are so quickly passed through the projecting lantern as
to be inseparable by the eye from one another, yet the
film can be passed by jerks at longer intervals, or the film
can be taken in the hand and each picture separately
examined. Thus the ordinary walking and running of
our fellow-citizens is shown to be built up of what are
often very ugly instantaneous poses of the feet and legs,
necessary results of our muscular and skeletal structure.

The expression of the emotions (on which Darwin wrote
a book) is analysed in a surprising way by these con¬
stituent pictures of the film, and a field of valuable obser¬
vation on that important subject is thus opened to the
psychologist, which has not yet been surveyed. Examples
are seen in the facial changes in Muybridge’s series of
the baseball batsman and in the series showing the face

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

and movements of a naked bather suddenly drenched by
a pailful of cold water.

The cinema shows have from time to time thrilled
their spectators by the exhibition of films showing
athletes boxing, jumping, running, and playing various
games of ball, in which the passage of the film through
the exhibition lantern is greatly “ slowed down,” but
not enough to cause discontinuity of the moving figures.
The “ slowing,” however, is such as to produce the
most ludicrous appearance of hesitation and deliberate
retarding of what is usually rapid instantaneous action.
A boxer slowly and gently places his fist on the nose of
his opponent, who quietly and ineffectually raises his
arm in order gently to touch the intrusive fist. A high
jumper is seen rising slowly in the air from the ground
as though levitated by “ spirits ” or filled with gas, and
then slowly, slowly, with astonishing contortions, he
propels himself in a sitting position over the bar and
quietly sinks, as though in a heavy liquid, to the ground
once more. In the same way the deliberate, prolonged
administration of a gentle push in the air to a tennis
ball by a player who seems to be in a state of semi¬
somnolence is a wonderful and laughable result of
slowing down the film of a first-class tennis match taken
at a rapid rate. These slowed-down films — exhibited
to the public for the sake of their grotesque sug¬
gestions — have great value as leading to the scientific
analysis and understanding of complex movements,
whether of limbs or of facial muscles, and render the
separate, detached, instantaneous photographs readily
intelligible. They also offer to the artist some very
beautiful “ poses ” of the human body, as, for instance,
in the slowed-down flight through the air of a “ high ”
diver.

SCIENCE AND THE FILM

Movements of Legs and Wings. — Series of such
instantanees must be made by the biologist expressly
for his own inquiries, and every biological laboratory
of university rank will soon have its own special appa¬
ratus (applicable to the microscope as well as to normal
scenes) both for taking series of instantaneous pictures
and for projecting them at whatever rate is desired on
to a screen. A small apparatus of this kind suitable
for use in an ordinary sitting-room or study is now on
sale at a moderate price. I may give expression to
personal conviction so far as to say that had such
apparatus been available some thirty years ago, when
I enjoyed the control of a laboratory and a staff of
assistants and pupils at Oxford, I should certainly have
had it installed there and have made researches by
its aid. The movements of the legs and wings of all sorts
of animals, large and small, besides those of the horse’s
legs, must be investigated in this way. The question
which so much disquieted the centipede when addressed
to her by the toad, according to a poem cited on p. 242
— namely, “ Pray, which leg moves after which ? ” must
be answered. And this not only as to centipedes, but
as to the even more elusive millipedes and the fasci¬
nating marine worms called Nereis and Eunice and
Nephthys and Phyllodoce, which have a row of more
than a hundred paddle-like legs on each side of the
body, moving rhythmically and propelling the worm
through the water whilst its body gracefully undu¬
lates like that of a serpent. That “ rhythm ” must
be ascertained and its control by the nervous centres
of the “ annelid ” (a prettier name than “ worm ”)
explained.

Movements of Cilia. — Then, too, to name only one
other line of inquiry in which the cinema can, and will

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

at once, help biology, there is the investigation (long
waiting for further progress) of the movements of the
vibratile hairs called “ cilia ” and “ flagella,” by use of
which a whole population of microscopic Infusoria — of
hundreds of different kinds — move with agility and dis¬
crimination and also often create whirlpools sweeping
food into their mouths. The movements of cilia are so
rapid that they have caused divergence of opinions as
to their character as great as those as to the galloping
legs of the horse. More complex and calling more
urgently for instantaneous photographic records are the
movements of the single long flagella of such animal¬
cules as Euglena, Astasia, and the so-called “ monads.”
These “ flagella ” are sometimes, as in the spermatozoids
of animals, worked as propulsive tails, like that of a
tadpole, whilst another sort is carried as a straight stiff
rod in front of the animalcule but has its free terminal
portion bent back like the lash of a whip. This reflected
lash wriggles in rhythmic undulation and so acts as a
traction-pull and draws the animalcule forward. The
exact movement of cilia and flagella and the action of
various agencies in causing their variation could all be
registered by series of instantaneous photographs taken
by such a combination of the microscope and cinema
camera as has enabled Dr. Commandant (who has
pursued his excellent researches in the film factory of
Messrs. Pathe, of Paris) to produce moving pictures of
the minute bacteria and spirilla and of many animal¬
cules with great accuracy and clearness of detail. Such
an application of “ cinema methods ” to the needs of
science will soon be realized.

Quickening Up. — Having mentioned the “ slowing
down ” of films as a source of interesting information, I
am reminded of the contrasted method of quickening

SCIENCE AND THE FILM

up a film which can give results of some value. For
instance, such a very slow gradual process as the open¬
ing of a flower-bud or leaf-bud, taking, say, three or
four days, can be photographed at intervals of several
minutes and a film of some hundreds of instantaneous
pictures thus obtained which is subsequently projected
at the rate of a thousand or more in a minute. The
resulting screen picture gives the untwisting of the flower
from bud to perfect expansion in about half a minute.
The whole process is visualized as one rapid move¬
ment, but not too rapid for the mind to form a
vivid impression of the form and character of the
movement.

The same thing has been shown in a much more
difficult field of study — namely, that of the self-division
and consequent multiplication of the constituent cells of
protoplasm which build up animal tissues. This process
is usually a very slow one. A cell, even in young tissue
which is rapidly growing, takes some six hours or more
to increase in bulk, and then to commence to split into
two by the division of its nucleus or central kernel. It
is so slow that it does not present itself to the observer’s
mind as a movement at all. It is as difficult to “ see ”
as is the movement of the hour-hand of a watch. Yet
when a film is produced by photographing the dividing
cell of living tissue at intervals of half a minute, and
when the film so produced is unrolled at a much quicker
rate, so as to pass through in half a minute what took
six hours — then, indeed, we get a most astonishing
spectacle. The quiet little corpuscles or “ cells ” of
protoplasm suddenly become obviously “ alive.” They
were “ alive ” all the time, but their slow movement
failed to impress the observer. Now we see them in “ the
quickened-up ” film — swelling and pushing one another,

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

and then suddenly bursting or splitting into two, where¬
upon each half swells and proceeds on the same path of
growth and division

The quickening-up process helps us to put things
together, and to realize the active movement which is
going on, though too slowly to be obvious to us when not
thus accelerated. It would in this way help us to under¬
stand the separate pictures on a film of a lawn-tennis
match, supposing we had only seen them very slowly
pass through an exhibition camera. But as a means of
investigation, “ quickening up ” is not nearly so im¬
portant as “ slowing down,” and the ultimate separation
of the constituent pictures of a film. That is a process
of real analysis and promises to render valuable help
to scientific studies

Records of Great Actors and Dancers. — Before
leaving the subject, I should like to emphasize the
value of the service to all sorts of interests, arts, in¬
dustries, and sciences, which the cinema can render
when used purely and simply to register a record — a
record, be it remembered, of a brief period of life and
movement. This is altogether distinct from its use
as a source of amusement, as a teller of stories and a
peep-show of astonishing adventures, of horrors un¬
speakable, and of beauties beyond words. I confess
that I do not get so much pleasure from the cinema in
that sort of way as I do from the stage. But it seems to
me that the cinema can fill a special place not possible
for the living drama and stage play. It can actually
reproduce by its carefully executed faithful records,
the changing facial expression and the gestures of great
actors, of great public speakers, and of leaders of all
kinds of enterprise. It provides scientifically accurate

SCIENCE AND THE FILM

records of evanescent phenomena. It has been little
if at all used for this purpose, which appears to me to
be its distinctive and indeed unique possibility — far
more important than that of “ story-telling without
words.” A few films have been produced which possess
this special value. Such, for instance, is one of the
first films shown in London in which the story of the
murder of the Due de Guise was “ featured,” as they say,
by two great actors of the Comedie Franijaise, M.
Mounier Sully and M. Le Bargy, aided by other notable
actors and actresses. The value of this film f which
I saw when it was first exhibited) consists — if it still
exists — not in the dramatic story which it tells, but in
the permanent record of the methods and mastery of
facial expression characteristic of a group of famous
comedians.

There is one great art of the stage in which the
cinema could preserve for us a really complete and
entirely satisfactory presentation of the performance of
specially gifted artists, which can be perpetuated in no
other way. That is the creative art of the great dancer.
So far as I know this record has never been attempted.
Some ten years ago Mr. John Sargent, the Academician,
said to me that no painter could possibly present on
canvas the charm and artistic gifts of the great Russian
dancer Madame Anna Pavlova. It could, he said, only
be achieved by the cinematograph. No doubt this is
true. It could be done by the cinema, but it never has
been. I do not know what are the circumstances which
have hitherto prevented the production of the most
skilfully arranged films faithfully recording the perform¬
ance of the greatest dancer of our time — films which would
transmit to posterity with almost perfect accuracy the
marvellous beauties of moving gesture and expression,

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

which now are vouchsafed to us for a brief moment and
remain thereafter only as fading memories. But some
day the cinema will rescue the work of such great artists
from oblivion and offer it for the permanent delight of the
world.

CHAPTER III

THE PHAGOCYTES, OR EATER-CELLS

ALL living things, whether plants or animals, are
either single very minute “ corpuscles ” of proto¬
plasm — called “ cells ” — or are aggregates, i.e.
built-up masses of such cells. Protoplasm is the name
given to the very peculiar living, changing “ slime ” or
viscid material of which every “ cell ” is constituted.
The name “ cell ” was applied two hundred and fifty
years ago to the tiny cases, fitted together like the
cells of a honeycomb, which the living units, or cor¬
puscles, of protoplasm building up the leaves, stems,
flowers, and fruits of plants deposit around themselves.
Then the application of the word was actually transferred
from the cell or case to its living, slimy content — just as
we say “ a bottle of wine,” meaning the liquid contained
in the glass bottle and not the glass bottle itself.

Not only is every living thing built up by these units
of living matter called “ cells,” and of the cases of inert
material deposited by them around themselves, which
may be either very copious or else negligible in quantity,
but the fact is that every living thing, whether plant or
animal, starts its individual existence as a single “ ferti¬
lized egg-cell ” usually less than i-i5oth of an inch in
diameter, which slowly increases in bulk and divides
into two Each of these two divides into two, and these

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

repeat the process, and so on for hundreds of times, until
from the single egg-cell — in the course of days or weeks
— an adherent mass of many million “ cells ” may result.
Such is the case with the larger animals and plants ;
but there are simple kinds of both plants and animals
which are single cells and remain so. They take
nourishment, grow in size, and divide into two ; but the
two, in this kind, separate from one another, and each
goes on its own way. Such animals, of which many
hundred kinds are known to microscopists, are called
“ unicellular animals ” or “ Protozoa.” Each is com¬
parable to a single one of the many million units which
build up a large animal such as a man or a fish or a snail.
And, similarly, there are unicellular plants.

Living cells acquire many different shapes and are
variously active. It is not surprising that some amongst
those building up a complex multicellular animal
resemble very closely some of the independent uni¬
cellular animals. Whilst most of the cells of a multi¬
cellular animal are embedded in the case-like material
which they form, and so constitute compact, more or less
solid, living masses, which are called tissues, others
float freely in the liquids of the animal body — the blood
and the lymph — and are singularly like certain uni¬
cellular “ animalcules ” which are common in ponds
and in sea-water, where they lead an independent life.
These “ animalcules ” have long been known as Amoeba
or the Proteus-animalcule, and the floating cells similar
to Amoebae formed in the blood and lymph of multi¬
cellular animals by division of the original or parent
“ egg-cell,” are called “ white blood corpuscles,” also
“ amoeboid corpuscles,” or, since Metchnikoff dis¬
covered their nature and importance, the “ eater-cells,”
or “ phagocytes.”

THE PHAGOCYTES

Let us look first at an Amoeba. In Fig. 5, one is
shown removed from some pond-water and crawling
on a glass slide. It is magnified about 200 times in
diameter. The figures are actual photographs taken
from the first cinema-film of a moving shape-changing
Amoeba ever produced, and were prepared and given
to me by Messrs. Pathe, of Paris. The whole film

Fig. 5. — -Figures from a cinema film of a rapidly moving Amoeba
photographed from life by Messrs. Pathe, of Paris. The complete
series consists of photographs taken at the rate of thirty in a
second of time. The figures here selected are about a second of
time apart;.

could not be printed here, but I have selected seven, show¬
ing the changes of shape of the Amoeba at intervals of
about ^one second of time. This constant change of
shape is indicated by the name Amoeba — which is a
Greek word meaning “ changeful.” Owing to this
irregular expansion and retraction of its naked slimy
substance or “ protoplasm,” the Amoeba crawls. But
not only that. If it comes into the neighbourhood of a
particle of food (a diatom or tiny plant-particle more

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

minute than itself) the slimy substance of the Amoeba is
chemically attracted by it and flows around the food-
particle and engulfs it, as shown in Fig. 6, A. And the
particle ( a ) so engulfed or swallowed by the Amceba

Fig. 6. — Comparison of an Amoeba (A) and a Colourless Blood Cor¬
puscle or Phagocyte (B). Each is in the act of engulfing a food-
particle.

The food-particle a in the case of the amoeba is a minute green
plant, and in the case of the phagocyte is a disease-germ of the
kind known as a " spirillum ” which produces “ relapsing fever.”
The successive stages of the enclosure of the food-particle in the
protoplasm or living substance of the amceba and the phagocyte
are seen, a, food-particle, b, water taken in with it by the
amoeba, c, vacuole or cavity in the protoplasm containing liquid.
d, the " cell-nucleus ” or central kernel.

with a little water ( b ) is digested and dissolved in the
Amoeba by chemical processes and absorbed by it as
nourishment. The Amoeba multiplies by division into
two when it grows to a certain size, and it is often very
abundant among dead leaves in a rain-pool. There are

THE PHAGOCYTES

many kinds or species of Amoeba, of which that here
figured is a sample.

Now we turn to the “ phagocytes,” the colourless
corpuscles ,of the blood. They are parts or units of the
actual substance of the multicellular animals in which
they are abundant, and not parasites which have made
their way in from the outside. Indeed, as we shall see,
they are a sort of special guard or defence of the animal
body against foreign intruders — such as Bacteria,
Trypanosomes, and other “ germs ” which constantly
make more or less effectual attempts to get into that little

i|||F

Fig. 7. — Successive changes of form of a Colourless Corpuscle or
“ Phagocyte ” from the Blood of Man — as seen through a high-
power microscope on a glass plate kept at the temperature of
the human body. The phases are about five seconds of time
apart.

fortress, a living animal. In Fig. 7 we have represented
a “ phagocyte ” from the blood of man. It is much
smaller than the Amoeba — twenty times smaller than the
large one photographed — though Amoebae as small
are common. The same movements and change of
shape are seen as in Fig. 5. The “ phagocytes ” are very
abundant in human blood — there are 500 millions of
them in a pint of it, but the “ red corpuscles ” are far
more numerous — in the proportion of 5000 to r. In
Fig. 8 a “ phagocyte ” from the frog’s blood is drawn
from the life. It is larger and even more active than
that of man.

Such “ phagocytes ” are abundant constituents of
3

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

the blood and lymph-like fluids of all animals. Sixty
years ago it was shown that if some powdered vermilion
is put into a drop of blood, the “ phagocytes (which
were then called merely “ white blood corpuscles ) will
engulf the fine grains of vermilion — as an Amoeba
engulfs food-particles. But nothing came of this obser¬
vation until three great discoveries were made — namely,
(i) that infective diseases are caused by bacteria (Bacilli,
Spirilla, and Cocci) which make their way from the
exterior into the blood and tissues of healthy animals, and

Fig. 8. — Successive changes of form of a Colourless Corpuscle or
Phagocyte of the Frog’s Blood, carefully drawn from life. The
corpuscle is seen to be in process of fission or dividing into two
(Fig. h). The phases of change drawn are separate from each
other by about five seconds.

multiplying there produce the specific poisons of the
diseases (fevers, etc.) of which they are the causes (Pasteur),
and that the deadly suppuration of wounds is also due
to intrusive Bacteria (Lister) ; (2) that the colourless

corpuscles push their way through the wall of the finest
blood-vessels when “ inflammation ” occurs at a wounded
or injured part of the body (see Fig. 9, and its explana¬
tion), and accumulate by millions in the injured tissue
(Cohnheim) ; (3) that in transparent water-fleas and

marine animals infected by intrusive germs or foreign
particles, one can actually watch the colourless blood
corpuscles engorging and destroying the infective

THE PHAGOCYTES

foreign particles in great numbers (Metchnikoff). It
was Metchnikoff who brought these three facts together
and connected them by his doctrine of “ phagocytosis ”
— the special activity and significance of the hitherto
un-explained colourless
corpuscles of the blood
to which he now gave
the name “ eater-cells ”
or “ phagocytes.” He
showed by prolonged
experiments and obser¬
vations on all kinds of
animals, healthy and
diseased, ‘that the busi¬
ness of the amoeba-like
phagocytes of the blood
and lymph of animals
is to swallow and de¬
stroy all intrusive germs
and also to remove
dead tissue and hurtful
foreign bodies. In Fig.

6, B, we see a “ phago¬
cyte ” engulfing and
digesting a fever-caus¬
ing “ spirillum ” in the
blood of a guinea-pig
— just as an Amoeba
engulfs its attractive

food-particle (Fig. 6, A). In Fig. g (bis) we see Metchni¬
koff ’s drawing of a large “ phagocyte ” which has
engulfed a number of cholera-bacilli. Just in the same
way (as hundreds of observers have now shown) all
kinds of disease germs and the deadly “ wound-infecting ”
germs are seized and destroyed by the ever-active

Fig. g. — The out - wandering of a
Phagocyte through the delicate wall
of a blood-vessel (capillary) of the
Frog, a., the oval red blood corpus¬
cles of the frog inside the blood¬
vessel. p.t the phagocyte, n., nu¬
cleus of a cell of the wall of the
capillary vessel.

In the left-hand figure the phagocyte
has penetrated half-way to the ex¬
terior of the vessel. In the right
hand figure it has very nearly got
completely through. (From Metch-
nikoff.)

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

“ phagocytes.” They are indeed the “ scavengers ” of
the animal body. It is on them that we have to rely
in our battle against infective diseases. Consequently
Metchnikolf and his followers have made careful ex¬
periments and found out what will help and what will
retard the “ phagocytes ” in their life-saving work.
They not only swallow and digest hostile germs, but are
attracted or repelled by them, conquer them by chemical

poisons which they exude,
and produce other chemi¬
cal bodies of great import¬
ance (antitoxins). They
can be assisted and
strengthened by various
artifices now discovered
by medical science.

Fig. 9 (bis). — A large Phagocyte of
the Guinea-Pig, which has engulfed
many cholera microbes or “ com¬
ma-bacilli,” and is in course of
digesting them, ch., some of the
cholera microbes. n., the cell-
nucleus of the phagocyte. v.,
vacuity or liquid-holding cavi¬
ties. (From Metchnikoff.)

Metchnikolf. It only occurs

The escape of the
“ phagocytes ” (Fig. 9)
from the blood-vessels in
inflammation (“ diaped-
esis,” or “ out- wander¬
ing,” as it was called),
and in fact inflammation
itself, is explained by
in animals which have a

highly developed system of blood-vessels under the
control of the nervous system. The heat and redness of
inflammation is due to a local arrest or congestion of the
blood-stream, caused by a dilatation of the smaller veins
under the control of special muscles and nerves. This
local congestion of the blood-stream allows the “phago¬
cytes ” to escape at an injured spot in vast numbers (see
Fig. 9), and so to eat up and destroy dead tissue, foreign
substances, and, above all, the “ wound - poisoning ”

THE PHAGOCYTES

bacteria, which would otherwise, having entered at the
broken skin-surface, multiply with deadly effect. Thus
we have briefly set forth the answer to the question
“ What are ‘ phagocytes ’ ? ” They are so important
and are so dominant a feature in the new surgery and
new medicine associated with the great germ-theory of
disease, that every one should have a clear conception
of their nature. Our knowledge of them has been
greatly advanced by the study of wounds and their
infection during the Great War, and is increasing every
day.

CHAPTER IV

SOME POND-SNAILS

SNAILS are of many and various kinds. In
drawing up the great pedigree of animals which
is called “ the classification of the animal kingdom,”
naturalists place them, with other creatures like them
in structure, as a stem or great line of descent which
is called the “ Mollusca.” It comprises the snails and
whelks as well as the bivalve mussels, clams, and oysters.
Examples of other great stems are the Vertebrates, the
Appendiculates, the Starfishes.

The molluscs, as their name suggests, are remarkable
for the softness of the body, which in most of them is
protected by a hard shell or pair of shells. The body
is not merely soft, but curiously elastic — so that it can
change in shape, swelling out in one part and shrinking
in another. The swelling is due to the driving of the
blood from one region, of which the muscular wall
contracts, into another which yields and becomes “ taut,”
distended and expanded by the abundant blood. By
this squeezing in one part and distension in another, the
mollusc can force its head and body far beyond its shell, or
again shrink rapidly out of view into the protecting shell.

This kind of expansion and contraction of the body

is not seen in other animals except in the sea-anemones

SOME POND-SNAILS

and the little polyps allied to them, where, however, the
liquid which effects the expansion is not the animals’
blood (they have no blood !), but sea-water taken in at
the mouth. Lovers of the seashore and its curious
inhabitants delight themselves by placing a sea-anemone
— picked up on the rocks at low tide as a hard, fleshy
lump as big as a large walnut — in a glass of sea-water.
Slowly it takes water into itself through its mouth and
expands as it relaxes its muscles, and after an hour or
two is seen as a beautifully coloured little tower crowned
with a circlet of delicate pointed tentacles of varied tint
which surround the mouth. It has expanded to ten times
its original bulk — and is, in fact, distended with the
sea-water taken into it, and is “ taut ” and firm. Touch
it now with your finger, and it shrinks ; it contracts as
you watch it, driving out the sea-water from its mouth
and the tips of its tentacles until it becomes the shapeless
little fleshy lump with which you started.

This use of liquid to distend, and at the same time
make firm and rigid, the soft, flaccid body is common
to the polyps and to the molluscs ; and until a few years
ago it was thought that the molluscs, like the polyps and
sea-anemones, take in water into their blood-vessels so
as to effect their expansion, and that they let it escape
when they again shrink. But I was able to show at that
time that molluscs do not take water into their blood
when they expand themselves, nor throw out any liquid
when they shrink. In a very few exceptional molluscs the
blood is red, and one can see it driven into the expanding
parts of the body, and also see that none of the red blood
escapes from the body as it contracts . By careful measure¬
ment in a glass jar it has been shown that none of the
water around it is taken into the blood-vessels when the
mollusc expands, and that no liquid is thrown out by it

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

when it shrinks. The liquid in the body — the blood
merely passes from one part of the animal which shrinks
to another part which expands. The shrinking part is
within the shell, and hidden by it, whilst the swelling

Fig. io. — The Sea-Snail called Natica. In the left-hand figure it is
seen causing its foot and head gradually to swell out, by squeezing
the blood from the part of the body still concealed by the shell
into those regions (foot and head) which in consequence slowly
issue from the shell, although previously completely hidden
within it.

In the right-hand figure the process of swelling has been carried
further, so that the extruded regions are further distended
and almost completely spread over and conceal the shell. Yet
if the animal is now roughly touched or handled, the swollen
region quickly shrinks or “ contracts ” : the blood is driven from
them into that part of the body lying within the shell, and the
whole of the extruded part of the animal in half a minute
shrinks into the cavity of the shell and is completely hidden in and
protected by it. The reference letters have the following signifi¬
cance : s., the shell ; t., the pair of head- tentacles ; p.f., the hinder
part of the expanding muscular " foot ” by which the snail
crawls ; a.f., the front part of the crawling foot ; ref. a., the
reflected lobe of the front part of the foot ; ref.p., the reflected
lobe of the hinder region of the foot which, together with the
reflected lobe of the front part, swells out over the shell so as
to envelope it almost completely, as shown in the right-hand
figure.

part emerges from the mouth of the shell. When that
extended part is withdrawn into the shell it drives the
blood which had distended it, back into the previously
shrunken part of the animal concealed in the shell, and
thus collapses and shrinks, far into the cavity of the
shell.

SOME POND-SNAILS

The common pond-snail, shown in Fig. u, is readily
found in any large pond of stagnant water crawling on
the leaves of water-plants. It shrinks suddenly into its
delicate spiral shell and is lost to view when caught ;
but, if kept in a jar of water, may be watched gradually
swelling out from its shell, and crawling, as shown in
the drawings here printed which I made a long time ago
from some taken in the large ponds at Hampstead
Heath. One sees that the expanded animal shows a

Fig. ii.- — The common Pond-Snail, Limnaea stagnalis. Crawling.

/., foot ; h.l., head lobes ; m., mouth.

A, seen from above. B, side view. C, view of the crawling surface.

The eyes and head- tentacles are seen in A and B. Natural size.

large oblong pointed “foot,” as it is called (/.), on the
flat surface of which it crawls (Fig. n, C), whilst raised
on this cushion we see the “ head,” formed by two rounded
lobes right and left (Fig. 1 1, A, h.l.), between which is the
mouth ( m .). The head carries a pair of pointed tentacles,
and also, close by them, a pair of eyes. Behind the head,
rising from the upper surface of the foot, is the “ visceral
hump.” This remains always within and protected
by the shell, which covers it and is firmly attached to it.
The expanded animal is seen in B, hanging by a narrow
stalk or connecting isthmus from the visceral mass con-

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

cealed in the shell. One cannot have a better example
of the soft mobile body of a mollusc than is given by
this beautiful semi-transparent pond-snail.

And now as to’some other features of importance in
Mollusca. All of them except the bivalves (mussels,
oysters, cockles) have a very curious and elaborate rasp¬
like plate within the mouth (Fig. 12). It grows from the
floor of the mouth, as a finger-nail grows at the end of
our fingers, and wears away as it is used. It is beset
with minute sharp teeth in rows of definite 'shape and

Fig. 12.-—' The Lingual Ribbon or “ Tongue ” of the common Whelk,
magnified about four diameters, showing its rasping teeth set
in rows of three. Below is drawn a single row of three teeth,
more highly magnified. The common pond- snail has a shorter
lingual ribbon, armed with smaller and more numerous teeth.

pattern (beautiful to look at with the microscope), com¬
parable to the teeth on a rasp. It works up and down
across the opening of the mouth, being provided with
a ball-like mass of red-coloured muscles elaborately
disposed so as to give it vigorous and effective action.
It enables the molluscs provided with it to rasp down
vegetable and animal bodies which serve them as food ;
and in many cases even to bore holes through the shells
of other molluscs and so to feed on the soft animal within.
It is thus that the whelks attack and devour oysters.
You can see the pond-snail using his rasp, just visible
within his lips, as he crawls over the green growth on
the glass sides of an aquarium. The rasp-bearing

SOME POND-SNAILS

molluscs — the snails, slugs, whelks, periwinkles, limpets,
and cuttle-fish — form a natural group of blood-relations,
characterized by the possession (the common inherit¬
ance) of this remarkable ' organ, and separated from
the bivalve molluscs — the two-shelled mussels, clams,
oysters, and cockles — which are devoid of it. The
bivalves swallow very minute microscopic floating plants
(Diatoms and such-like) carried into their mouths
by streams of water drawn there by the innumerable
vibrating hairs or cilia with which their large gill-plates
(the so-called “ beard ” of the oyster) are closely covered.

If we leave aside the very peculiar cuttle-fish, with
their eight or ten arms beset with hooks and suckers,
the rasp-bearing molluscs are all very much like our
common pond-snail. They are all classed as “ Gastro¬
pods,” because their lower surface or belly is developed
into a crawling foot, as we have seen in the pond-snail.
The fresh-water and land-dwelling snails are derived
from marine ancestors ; and some are specially adapted
to breathe air. The marine kinds, such as whelks and
periwinkles, have a pair of comb-like or feather-like
gills protected by a hood or fold of the body. Usually
this pair of gills is reduced to a single one. The gastro¬
pods have nearly all become lop-sided or one-sided.
The origin of this lop-sidedness is connected with the
spiral twist of the shell, as seen in our pond-snail (Fig. 1 1).
It is a right or left “ screw,” as the case may be. Some¬
times the spire is not drawn out, but is flat like a watch-
spring, as in the flat-coiled pond-snail Planorbis (Fig. 13),
which is common in ponds, living side by side with the
other which is called Limnaea (Fig. 1 1). Both Plan¬
orbis and Limnaea are devoid of even one gill or gill-
comb, and, like the land-snail (Helix) and land-slug
(Limax), have the hood, which in other snails protects

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

the gill-plume, converted into a chamber with small
aperture capable of complete closure by muscles. You
may easily see this aperture in the common garden
snail and in the garden slug when it is crawling. This
chamber contains air, and is a lung. Hence these
snails are called the “ Pulmonate Gastropods.” There
are fish which live in rivers liable to dry up, and, like the

Fig. 13. — Flat-coiled Pond-Snail,
Planorbis coraeus. About twice
the natural size.

Fig. 14. — Running water Pond-
Snail, Paludina vivipara.
About twice the natural size.

Pulmonate snails, have what is a gill-chamber in other
fishes converted into a lung or air-breathing sac.

The shape of the shells of Pulmonate Gastropods
differs in different kinds, as it does in the marine kinds.
The whelks have long spiral shells like Limnaea, but
heavier and stronger ; and some of the sea-snails have
short spires like the garden snail, or they may have flat-
coiled shells like Planorbis. The limpet is a marine snail

SOME POND-SNAILS

with a simple cap-like or cup-like shell, without spire.
In our mountain streams there lives a little Pulmonate
snail similar in structure to Limnaea, but having a
simple cap-like shell on its “ visceral hump ” like that of
a limpet. It is called Ancylus, and is fairly common.
There are also Pulmonate water-snails, which have a
very minute spire to their shells, most of the shell con¬
sisting of a great open chamber out of proportion to the
spire. These shells are intermediate in form between
those of the common pond-snail and the cap-like one of
Ancylus. They also live in running water, and con¬
stitute a genus called Physa. There are many species
of Physa and many of Limnaea.

In Fig. 14 I have given a drawing of a very different
kind of pond-snail, called Paludina. It is common
enough, but will not live in stagnant water — a little
streamlet must run through the pond in which it flourishes.
I used to get it, with other stream-loving molluscs ( e.g .
the little bivalve “ Cyclas ”), in the “ Leg of Mutton
Pond ” at Hampstead, which is the source of a small
river, but it was not to be found in^the great stagnant
ponds of “ the lower Heath.” It has a fine striped snail-
like shell, a big crawling foot, tentacles, and eyes raised
on short stalks. It is not one of the Pulmonata, but has
a gill plume, and by it breathes the oxygen — not of the
air, but that dissolved in water. Its ancestors took to
fresh water and left the sea at a later period than those
of the Pulmonate pond-snails and allied land-snails.
One great point of difference which separates it from
the Pulmonates is that it possesses an operculum — a
round horny shield growing on the hinder part of the
foot, which fits tightly to the mouth of the shell when the
animal withdraws into that chamber. Most of the sea-
snails and whelks possess an operculum , but none of the

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

Pulmonates, with one doubtful exception, possesses it
Some of the fresh-water operculate snails, allied to Palu-
dina, have left the water altogether and taken to a life on
land. They, like the Pulmonates, have lost the gill, and

Fig. 15. — Cyclostoma
elegans, a land-liv¬
ing T operculate Snail
as seen when ex¬
panded from its
shell and crawling.
op., the horny plate
called the “ oper¬
culum,” which closes
the mouth of the
shell when the snail
withdraws itself in¬
to that protective
chamber. Natural
size.

Fig. 16. — A Snail
(closely allied to
Cyclostoma) with¬
drawn into its
shell, which is
seen to be closed
by the spirally-
marked opercul¬
um, op.

breathe air through the wall of the gill-chamber, but
they still keep the operculum. “ Cyclostoma ” is the
name of one commonly to be found crawling on walls
built of limestone rock in Gloucestershire (see Figs.
15 and 16).

CHAPTER V

POND-SNAILS AND BLOOD-RED

THE blood of man is red, owing to the fact that
it consists of almost equal parts of a clear, nearly
colourless liquid and of minute muffin-shaped
corpuscles floating in the liquid. There are about
30,000 million of them in a spoonful of blood. These
“ corpuscles ” are soft and semi-liquid. Each measures
i~3200th of an inch across, and consists of a red-coloured
transparent substance called “ blood-red,” or “ haemo¬
globin,” mixed with a nearly equal quantity of “ slimy ”
white-of-egg-like material. The blood-red haemoglobin
can be dissolved by water, and will then separate from
it as crystals of pure “ haemoglobin,” which are called
“ blood-crystals.” They differ a little in shape according
to the species of animal from the blood of which they
are obtained, ^Some are drawn here in Fig. 18. ’All
mammals (warm-blooded quadrupeds), birds, reptiles,
and fishes have red blood which owes its colour to the
blood-crystals or haemoglobin of “ red-blood-corpuscles ”
which float in their blood.

Until fifty-five years ago we knew little more of this
“ haemoglobin,” and it seemed as though it existed only
to give its noble colour to the blood, and to show through
the skin in the healthy blush of the cheek, the coral-red

of the human lips and of the cock’s comb and of the

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

turkey’s wattles — also, perhaps, to betray by the redness
of man’s nose an unhealthy state of the circulation !
It is a very complex but definite chemical body — a
chemical union of the elements carbon, nitrogen, oxygen,
hydrogen, and sulphur with a small but definite quantity
of iron. Then it was studied by aid of the spectroscope,
and its real significance revealed.

It is proverbial that one cannot trust to colour as
a means of recognizing a given substance — Ne crede
colori. You can make a solution in water of carmine
and a little yellow pigment which to the unaided eye will
pass for a solution of blood-crystals. Many other red
solutions look like it ; and so with yellow, green, and
blue substances — you cannot be sure what they are by
their colour alone. If you allow white sunlight to pass
through a prism you separate its “ trains ” and spread
them out as the colours of the rainbow. You can so
arrange that the white light coming through a narrow
slit into a dark chamber shall be spread out as it passes
through a prism of glass into an elongated band in which
the red, yellow, green, blue, and purple “ trains ” of
light which are mixed in white light are separated and
follow one another in that order, one passing gradually
into the next. This band of rainbow colours is called
“ the spectrum ” (Fig. 17, top). Now, if you put a glass
tube containing a coloured solution in front of the slit
where the white sunlight enters the otherwise dark
chamber, you find, as you would expect, that a red liquid
lets the red pass, but stops — in fact, is “ opaque ” to — the
other colours more or less ; a green liquid stops all or
nearly all but the green ; a blue all but the blue. The
“ stopped ” colours are simply absorbed , and where they
were seen in the spectrum of white light it is now black
and dark. Few, if any, red-coloured liquids absorb

POND-SNAILS AND BLOOD-RED

exactly the same extent or part of the spectrum ; nor are
all yellow, or all green, or all blue liquids exactly alike in
this matter. Their minor differences of “ tint ” are due
to their absorbing or else letting pass more or less of the
light of another colour. A very curious and important
fact was discovered when various transparent coloured
bodies (liquids and solids) were tested in this way. It
was found that some (but by no means all) transparent
coloured bodies cause detached black bands of absorp¬
tion in the spectrum (see Fig. 17). They are called

Fig. 17. — To show the “ Absorption Bands ” seen in the " Spectrum ”
of Sunlight which has passed through a weak solution in water
of Blood-Red or Haemoglobin.

“ absorption bands," and can be accurately measured
and their exact position in the spectrum fixed. Such
coloured bodies as give detached absorption bands
can be recognized and identified with absolute certainty
by the position of those bands in the spectrum. As
shown in Fig. 17, records of them are kept by which
their position is shown as compared with that of certain
fine dark lines always present in the spectrum of sun¬
light, called after their discoverer, “ Fraunhofer’s lines,”
and named by letters, as seen in Fig. 17. And even
more exactly the wave-lengths of the trains of light
4

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

absorbed are ascertained. The figures 700 to 450 in the
diagram of the spectrum of sunlight in Fig. 17 give
the wave-lengths of the light-waves of each part of
the spectrum in very minute units — namely, units of
1-10, oooth of a millimetre — and thus we can fix and
state once for all the position of any “ absorption bands,”
so that the substance producing them can be unerringly
recognized when its presence is suspected. The purple
solution of a compound of the element manganese
(known as Condy’s fluid) gives six detached “ absorption
bands ” in the green and blue part of the spectrum ;
leaf-green, or chlorophyll, gives a remarkable series of
separate absorption bands, and very many coloured
bodies derived from plants and from animals give each
their own special and readily recognized set of “ absorp¬
tion bands.” Each can be recognized with certainty
by these bands, and the position of the bands exactly
measured, so that even a minute drop of a weak solu¬
tion of such a colouring matter is sufficient for decisive
examination, though chemical analysis would be hopeless
as a means of recognition.

In 1864 Sir George Stokes, of Cambridge, found
that a solution in water of blood-red or haemoglobin
gives two well-marked absorption bands in the yellow
and green part of the spectrum (Fig. 17). When the
blood of man or other animal has passed through the
lungs it becomes bright red ; but, before being exposed
in the lungs to the oxygen of the inspired air, it is dark
and somewhat purple. It was found that a watery
solution of haemoglobin in a glass test-tube, if shaken up
with air, becomes bright red, just as does the blood in
the lungs, and that it loosely combines with or holds the
oxygen gas of the air. It is then that it shows the two
absorption bands (Fig. 17). But if the loosely combined

POND-SNAILS AND BLOOD-RED

oxygen be taken away from the solution of haemo¬
globin — a removal which can be easily brought about
by adding to the solution a few drops of a certain oxygen¬
seizing chemical — then the haemoglobin solution becomes
of a bluer purple hue, and, when examined with the
“ spectroscope ” (a convenient arrangement of slit and
prism to produce a spectrum), is found to give no longer
two absorption bands, but only one, not identical with
either of the two previously there (see Fig. 17). Now,
if we shake up the purple-looking deoxygenized solution
of haemoglobin with a little air, it at once takes up some
oxygen and becomes bright red again, and again shows
two absorption bands in the spectrum. And we can
again take away the oxygen with the deoxidizing chemical
and make it purple and one-banded, and again brighten
it with oxygen, and so keep on ringing the changes.
In fact, the haemoglobin becomes bright-red two-banded
<?^y-haemoglobin by taking up oxygen, and “ reduced ”
or simple one-banded claret-coloured haemoglobin when
deprived of that oxygen. And so we have the explanation
of its presence in the blood. The haemoglobin or blood-
red is there as a condenser and carrier of oxygen , taking up
that gas as it passes through the lungs and conveying it
to the most distant parts of the body, where it is largely
given up to the living tissues more greedy of it than the
blood-red itself, which returns, darkened in tint, in the
veins to the heart, and so once more to the lungs for a
fresh supply of oxygen and a renewal of its bright colour.

The discovery of the absorption bands of haemoglobin
has enabled us to recognize its presence in various small
animals and in unexpected parts of the body. It has thus
been shown that the red colour of meat — that is, of
animals’ muscle — is due to the presence of haemoglobin
in the muscular fibre, not to blood in their blood-vessels.

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

The muscles require much oxygen, and the haemoglobin
of the muscular fibre holds it and stores it. Many marine
worms and the earth-worms and river-worms have
beautiful networks of blood-vessels, the blood in which is
red. It is proved that this is due to haemoglobin in
solution, by the absorption bands produced by it in the
spectroscope and by the crystals which it forms. Insects
and spiders and such creatures as crabs, lobsters, and
shrimps, with rare exceptions, have no haemoglobin ;
neither their blood nor their muscles are red. Nor have
the molluscs red blood or red muscles, with rare and
curious exceptions. And so we are brought back to the
flat-coiled pond-snail (Planorbis corneus) of which I
wrote in the last chapter (Fig. 13). It is one of these
exceptions. It was long known to eject a dark red fluid
from its body when cut or pricked. I examined this red
fluid with the spectroscope, and proved conclusively that
the colour was due to haemoglobin and that the fluid was
the snail’s blood. The common long-shelled pond-
snail (Limnaea) (Fig. 11) has colourless or pale-bluish
blood, and so have all other molluscs, except two or three
of the bivalves. Here, then, we are brought by the
pond-snails to this puzzling and interesting question —
Why should the flat-coiled pond-snail have a rich stock of
the oxygen-carrier haemoglobin in its blood, and the other
snails have none ? And yet another startling fact is
revealed by the spectroscope when used to explore the
colours of snails. The little globular mass of muscles
which moves the pond-snail’s rasp-like tongue is 'of
a pale red colour : in marine snails it is actually
of a rich ruby- red. All the other muscles of these
snails are colourless and the blood in all, except
Planorbis, is colourless or very pale blue. Yet this
pink or ruby-red ball of rasp-muscles was shown when
I examined it with the spectroscope to owe its colour to

POND-SNAILS AND BLOOD-RED

haemoglobin — the very same red oxygen-carrying blood-
crystals which we find in the red corpuscles and the
muscular fibre of man and the great animals allied to
him ! It seems that haemoglobin can quite exceptionally
be present in some animals and in some parts of animals,
and not in others ; but it is difficult to connect its presence
in all cases with any obvious and special need for it. I
found it in the nerve cord of a marine worm, the “ sea-
mouse,” which it stains bright crimson, although there
is none in that worm’s blood. Some water-fleas
(Crustacea) living in stagnant ponds have it dissolved in
their blood ; and so — absolutely alone among insects —
has the ruby-red larva of the harlequin-fly (Chironomus),
which lives in the black foul mud of ponds, where oxygen
must be a rare and precious commodity. Boys used to
call it a “ blood-worm,” and use it as a bait to catch
sticklebacks.

The blood of lower animals, which does not
possess the red oxygen-carrying haemoglobin — including
that of most of the mollusca and the insects, spiders,
scorpions, and Crustacea (crabs and lobsters and shrimps)
— has often a pale-blue oxygen-carrying substance in it
instead. It is called Haemocyanin, and is indigo-blue
when carrying oxygen, and nearly colourless when deoxi¬
dized. It gives no detached absorption bands in the spec¬
trum of light passed through it. Further, in some marine
worms (the Chlorhaemians) the blood is green instead of
red. This is due to a substance which I discovered in
1868 and called “ chlorocruorin.” It carries oxygen,
and gives two peculiar absorption bands. Since red,
blue, and green substances exist in the blood of different
animals and act as oxygen-carriers, it is not improbable
that special colourless oxygen-carrying substances also
exist in the blood and tissues of animals which are colour

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

less. A means of detecting and isolating such substances
has yet to be discovered.

The fact that the haemoglobin of different animals
forms crystals of different shape in many instances (see

Fig. i 8. — Crystals of the Red Colouring
Matter of the Blood Corpuscles, known
as “ Blood-Red ” or Haemoglobin.

1, from the human blood.

2, from the rat’s blood.

3, from the squirrel’s blood.

4, from the blood of the hamster (a kind

of rat).

The crystals are magnified a thousand
times linear.

Fig. 1 8) shows that the haemoglobin is not precisely
identical in all cases. This fact has been carefully
established, but whether other peculiarities accompany
this difference in crystalline form, has not yet been
ascertained.

CHAPTER VI

THE POND-SNAIL’S FLEA

A TINY, colourless, worm-like little creature lives
on the surface of the bodies of both the elongate
and the flat-coiled pond-snails (Limnaea and
Planorbis). When you watch a pond-snail crawling or
floating in a small dish of water over which you bend
closely (with, if you like, a watchmaker’s magnifying
glass in your eye), you will see these minute worms, not
more than one-sixth of an inch long, moving about on
the snail’s body, clinging to it by their hook-like bristles
(Fig. 19, B) massed in paired bundles (Fig. 19, A, and
Fig. 20, B). You can see them letting go their front
hold so as to stretch the head and neck and take a more
advanced grip, and draw the rest of the body forwards —
somewhat in the same way as a looping caterpillar walks
(Fig. 19, B). This little creature may well be called the
pond-snail’s “ flea,” as it infests the surface of the pond-
snail’s body much as fleas infest the higher animals —
though it is not one of the six-legged “ insects,” as the
flea is, but is one of the “ bristle-footed ” annulate
worms, or Chaetopoda, similar in structure to the earth¬
worm and many kinds of freshwater and marine worms.

I have found from four or five to as many as twenty
of these little parasites on a single snail, and when I
first made their acquaintance, many years ago while

Fig. 19. — The little Worm, Chaetogaster Limnseas, which Uves like a
flea on the body of the Pond-Snails, Limnaea and Planorbis.

A, a highly magnified view of the worm lying on its side, ph., pharynx ;

st., stomach; h.b.1, head-bristle bundle of parent worm ; h.b 2 head-
bristle bundle of second or budded worm ; fis.1, line of fission by
which the second worm will separate from the first ; fs.2, second line
of fission by which a third worm will separate from the second.
a, ordinary hooked bristle; b, genital bristle or seta (club-shaped).

B, the worm crawling with upraised head.

C, a, ordinary hooked bristle, and b, genital bristles of the worm,

Nais serpentina.

THE POND-SNAIL’S FLEA

dissecting pond-snails, I determined to find out all I could
about their life-history and structure, and year after year
I kept an eye on them. They were called Chaetogaster
(signifying “ bristled belly ”) by their first discoverer.
Two or three species (one nearly half an inch long) are
known which live freely among the floating duck-weed of
ponds, and are, as is also that frequenting the pond-snail,
glass-like in their transparency, so that their digestive
tract, brain, and nerves, blood-vessels and kidneys,
muscles, etc., can be readily studied in living specimens
with high powers of the microscope. The kind infesting
the pond-snail was called Chaetogaster Limnaeae by the
great naturalist Von Baer.

Our Fig. 19, A, shows the little worm picked up from
the snail’s body with the aid of a fine glass tube and
placed on a slip of glass beneath the microscope. It is
shown as it appears when lying on its side, and is magni¬
fied about forty times (linear). The specimens drawn in
Fig. 20, A and B, are somewhat flattened by the pressure
of a thin cover-glass ; they are lying on the back, and are
magnified only twenty times (linear). In all three
specimens the bundles of bristles (projecting in Fig. 19, A,
from the belly) are the most arresting feature. The
mouth is at the front end of the worm (m. in Fig. 20),
and one sees the large pharynx and crop and gut of
the digestive tract showing through the transparent body
wall. The pair of bristle-bundles nearest to the mouth
are called the “ head-bristles ” (h.b.) ; they are longer
than those of the other “ bundles ” ; are more numerous,
being twelve in each bundle instead of eight ; and are
directed forward. The shape of a bristle with its double
hook is shown in Fig. 19, A, a. The bristles are moved by
muscles, and spread out like the spokes of a fan, clinging
to or letting go of the snail’s skin as required. The

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

bristle-bundles of the head are separated by a consider¬
able gap from the first pair of bristle-bundles of the
“ body,” and these succeed one another at short intervals
(see Figs. 19 and 20). Each pair of bristle-bundles
indicates a “ ring ” or “ segment ” of the worm’s body ;
and the long gap between the head-bristle-bundles and
the first of the body-bundles is due to the suppression
of one or more pairs corresponding to intermediate
“ rings ” or “ segments.” It will be seen in Fig. 19, A,
that three pairs of well-grown bristle-bundles of the
“ body ” region are succeeded by three or more pairs of
quite small bristle-bundles, which are actually young
and “ sprouting.” There is, in fact, a region of new
growth following on the three well-grown bristle-bundles
of the body region. We must remember that the little
worm’s body is like that of the earth-worm and other
ringed or annulate worms — made up of a series of
successive “ rings ” or “ segments ” not clearly marked
off from one another in Chaetogaster, but indicated by
the pairs of bristle-bundles which succeed one another
at intervals. Each pair, as in the earth-worm and the
sea-worms, belongs to a distinct ring. Just as the pairs
of bristle-bundles are repeated externally in successive
rings, so are internal organs, such as the little kidneys
( nephridia ) and the blood-vessels and nerve-ganglia,
repeated, each ring being thus a more or less exact
repetition of those in front of and behind it.

That repetition of segments as “ units of structure ” is
the characteristic of the annulated animals. Often in the
Chaetopoda, also called Annelids or annulated worms, the
successive constituent rings or segments are over a hun¬
dred in number (150 in a big earth-worm), sometimes as
few as twenty. Here in the little Chaetogaster very few
segments are held together to make up an individual.

THE POND-SNAIL’S FLEA

It is obvious in
both Fig 19, A,
and Fig. 20, B,
that the chain of
segments is about
to break into two.
A new head with
head - bristles has
formed at the point
marked h.b. be¬
tween 3 and 2 in
Fig. 20, B. You
can see the new
head also in Fig.
19, A, following
the dark constric¬
tion near the middle
of the chain. The
rule appears to be
that, following after
every three pairs
of body - bristle-
bundles indicating
three segments of
the body, a region
of “ new growth ”
is formed in which
not only a new
head with its head-
bristles proceeds to
take shape, but
also new young
bundles of bristles
belonging to new
rings which form

A, adult completed form of Chastogaster
Limnasae, showing h. b., head-bristles; g.b.,
genital bristles ; m., mouth, and sixteen
pairs of ordinary bristles. No regions of
new growth or fission are present.

B, fissiparous larval or young stage of the
same, showing two sets of head-bristles
h.b.1 and h.b.3, and two fines of fission
fis.1 and fis.2. Two more advanced
individuals, 1 and 2, and two less ad¬
vanced, 3 and 4, budded respectively
from them, are seen, constituting a
rapidly growing chain, which will con¬
tinue to grow in the same manner and
break into separate individuals.

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

between the new head and the third ring or body-bristle-
bundle of the front or leading worm. You thus get con¬
tinually going on an “ intercalation ” of new growth at
definite points in the chain, and a breaking of the chain
into two when a new “ head ” is sufficiently grown to act
as such for the rings behind it. In Fig. 20, B, this
history is marked out by the successive numbers I, 3, 2,
4. Between 1 and 2, which were originally continuous ,
a new growth of rings or segments (labelled 3) has taken
place. Also behind 2 a new growth (labelled 4) is pro¬
ceeding. The head of 2 (indicated by the head-bristles
h.b. and the long gap following them) is nearly com¬
plete, and then “ fission ” or division will occur just in
front of h.b}. The front individual consisting of I and
3 is already far advanced in the growth of new rings
between it and the head of the separating individual
marked by the letters h.b ? In its own hinder region
(labelled 4) this new individual is far advanced in the
production of new rings and bristle-bundles for further
separation as distinct individuals. This process of inter¬
calation of new segments and subsequent fission is seen,
with special variations and laws as to the number of
segments involved, in other annulate worms — for in¬
stance, in the freshwater Nais and the marine Syllis.
The reader should now turn to Fig. 22 (bis) and its
explanation.

The chains of Chaetogaster Lymnaeae grow and
multiply by fission in this way during all the spring and
summer. In early spring they are found even inside
the pond-snail in its kidney as well as on its surface.
But, like all other animals, Chaetogaster has, we may
be sure, another mode of multiplication — namely, by
detaching from its body microscopic egg-cells which are
fertilized by microscopic sperms. Such “ eggs,” in the

THE POND-SNAIL’S FLEA

case of other worms, are often laid in egg-capsules, from
which they hatch as very minute microscopic young.
For three years I searched for this phase of the life-
history of Chaetogaster at all seasons, and at last I found,
in the first week of one October, my elusive little acquaint¬
ance in his adult full-blown condition. At that date one
or two of the “ wormlets ” (so we may designate Chaeto¬
gaster), crawling on a freshly caught pond-snail, were
seen by me to be larger by one-third
companions. In ever-renewed hope
of finding the pond-snail’s wormlet
in its adult condition, I examined
one of these larger specimens under
the microscope, and what I saw is
sketched in Fig. 20, A. I had at last
run down the full-grown adult stage
of the Chaetogaster Limnaeae. Natur¬
ally enough, in accordance with its
increase in size, the little worm had
abandoned its prolific habit of inter¬
calating new heads in its chain of
segments and of breaking into two
whenever a new head was complete.

Now the worm consisted of a head
region with a pair of large head-bristle-bundles, followed
by sixteen pairs of body-bristle-bundles, set at regular
intervals and indicating sixteen constituent rings or
segments of the body. I soon discovered other speci¬
mens of this construction. The bristles in all the
bundles were larger and twice as numerous as those in
the “ fissiparous ” or immature form (Fig. 21). More¬
over, as shown in Fig. 20, A, a thickening of the skin
formed a girdle just over that part g.b. where the crop
or stomach shows through it. This thickened girdle
occurs in the earth-worm and many fresh-water worms

ormore than their

Fig. 21. — Fan-like
Bundle of Bristles,
twenty-two in num¬
ber, from the head-
region of the adult
or sexually mature
Chaetogaster Lim¬
naeae.

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

where it is known as the clitellum , and secretes a ring¬
like case in which the eggs are enclosed when laid.

The most important fact which I found was that in
this, the adult or sexually ripe form, a new pair of bristle-
bundles (g.b.) has made its appearance in the neck-like
“ gap ” between the head-bristles and the earlier first
pair of body-bristle-bundles. This indicates the develop¬
ment of a previously dormant
region or segment in which
the essential generative pro¬
ducts — the egg - cells or
“ ova,” and the sperms and
the sacs connected with
fertilization, known in other
worms as “ spermathecae,”

Fig. 22.— The uncleft "Genital'* or sperm-receptacles— were, I
Bristles of an adult Chsetogaster found, now present. On the
Limnaeae, growing close to the surface four of the bristles
first pair of abdominal bristle- , . , , , N , ,

bundles, and indicating the on each Slde W had &rOWn
formation here of a new seg- of a new shape — they were
ment, the genital segment short, blunt “ clubs,” instead
shown in Fig. 20, A, and not of being double-hooks as that

in Fig. 19. I subsequently
found other specimens of the
adult wormlet on my pond-snails ; and also found in a
beautiful snake-like worm (Nais serpentina) an inch long,
coiling round dead twigs in a neighbouring pond, that
the same change from a fissiparous or dividing young
or larval form to a non-dividing adult sexual form
occurs, and that as in Chastogaster, so in Nais, a new
segment grows into place in the neck region when the
adult stage is attained, that in it the ova and sperms,
etc., develop, and that this segment has peculiar short
club-shaped bristles not present in the immature fissi-

present in the fissiparous imma¬
ture worms drawn in Fig. 20, B.

THE POND-SNAIL’S FLEA

Fig. 22 {bis). — Fission of Marine Annelids. Tire left-hand figure shows
the worm known as Autolytus cornutus — one of the " Syllids” —
dividing into two individuals of differing character; the anterior
is sexless, but the hinder is a ripe male, distinguished by the
name “ Polybostrichus." The legs and bristle-bundles of the
parent worm are totally unlike those of the hinder worm now
about to separate as an independent individual. F and CT,
tentacles and tentacular cirri of the a-sexual parent worm ; / and
t, those of the male about to break away.

The right-hand figure is a diagram showing the plan of bud-production
and fission in many marine-worms called Syllids. A is the parent
a-sexual worm ; Z is the zone of growth of new segments which
does not give rise to merely one sexual individual, but is continu¬
ously producing new individuals, B, C, D — the oldest, B, is the
farthest from the zone of new growth. The new individuals are
unlike the parent worm A, and are sexual. Compare this
arrangement with that shown by Chaatogaster, Fig. 20, A and B.

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

parous worm. These bristles I called the “ genital
setae.” So it was established (for the first time), and has
since been confirmed by other naturalists, that in these
little freshwater annelids or annulose worms there is a
larval fissiparous form which gives rise, after multiply¬
ing for a season by fission, to an adult sexual form
differing considerably from the larva especially in size,
the absence of fission, and the presence of a hitherto
suppressed genital segment carrying the reproductive
organs and peculiar club-shaped genital setae. Up to
the present date (1922) no one has seen the eggs of
the Chaetogaster when fertilized and laid, nor has the
development of the young worm from the egg been
described.

Now that I have said as much as I think the reader
will, for the moment, care to read about the pond-snail’s
flea or wormlet, I wish to emphasize the fact that one
can readily observe so much that is remarkable and of
wide significance in a common pond-snail. In the three
articles which I have devoted to it I have merely sketched
some of the more obvious of these things which any one
can readily verify, if he will venture so far as to keep
three or four pond-snails in a basin of water. In the
next chapter I shall tell of a very curious and important
matter concerning pond-snails — namely, their relation to
that terrible pest of the farmer, " sheep-rot.”

CHAPTER VII

THE LIVER-FLUKE

THE liver-fluke1 is shown of its natural size in our
drawing, Fig. 23, A. Its occurrence in sheep
was first described in 1547 : it causes a diseased
condition in them which is called “ sheep-rot.” It has
rarely been found in man : only twenty-eight cases are
recorded. But all over the world it is a serious pest in
sheep and oxen. In 1879, 300,000 sheep were killed by
it in England alone, and in 1891 one owner lost 10,000
in this way. It inhabits the bile-ducts and, when
numerous, causes atrophy of the liver by blocking its
passages, and death results. It does not feed on the bile,
but on the blood of its victim. Necessarily it became a
matter of great importance to find out how the sheep
become infected by this parasite, and, owing to the vast
increase of our knowledge of parasites generally during
the last century, many attempts were made to discover the
life-history of the liver-fluke, but it was not until 1883
that this was accomplished by Mr. A. P. Thomas, a
young student at Oxford, who anticipated the final work
of the great parasitologist, Professor Leuckart, of Leipzig,
who had long been busy in the quest. Mr. Thomas, as
will be seen, rendered it possible by his discovery to
protect sheep from this destructive disease.

1 The name “Distomum” was given to it 150 years ago, because
it seemed to have two mouths : the true mouth m in our figure A, and
the ventral sucker s.

Fig. 23. — The life-history of the Liver-Fluke, Distomum hepaticum.

A, a, ventral, and b, lateral aspect of the adult worm from the sheep’s

liver. A little larger than life, m, mouth ; s, ventral sucker.

B, the “ miracidium,” which hatches from the eggs of the liver-fluke,

and swims freely in pond-water, a, mouth ; c, eyes.

C, sporocyst, into which the miracidium is converted when it makes

its way into the body of the little snail, Limnsea truncatula.
d, the eyes degenerating ; e, an internal bud or embryo ; /, gut ;
and g, collar of young Redia, to which a bud has given origin.

D, fully formed Redia, one of several extruded from the sporocyst.

k, germs growing into young Cercariae ; m, external lappets
characteristic of Rediae ; n, germ-cells ; p, young Cercariae ; q,
young Redia.

E, freely swimming Cercaria, the tail-bearing young form of the

liver-fluke, r, oral sucker ; s, posterior sucker ; t, granules ;
j, pharynx ; /, gut.

THE LIVER-FLUKE

The liver-fluke is one of a numerous group of para¬
sites — but little known a hundred years ago — which
have a smooth, flat, oval body — varying in size from a
sixth of an inch to more than an inch in length — at one
end of which is a sucker-like mouth (Fig. 23, A, m.),
whilst one or more merely adhesive suckers (s.) are present
on other parts of the body — varying in number and
position in the different kinds. Other minute openings for
the renal organs and for the egg-ducts and sperm-ducts
are also present, but the large bifid gut, sometimes tree¬
like and branched, has no posterior opening. Rudolphi,
in 1808, gave the name Trematoda — meaning “pierced
with holes ” (Greek : TpiyiaTooSr)?) — to the whole class
comprising these worms, distinguishing them from
other parasites known as “ Tape- worms ” and
“ Thread-worms.”

It became known in the middle of last century that
many parasitic worms have two “ hosts ” or animals
which they infest in turn — one during their young
condition, which is called the “ primary host,” and the
other the “ final host,” into which they pass in order to
finish their growth, become mature and lay their eggs.
The parasites usually pass from the first to the second
host readily enough owing to the fact that the final host
habitually preys upon the primary one — and so swallows
the young parasite with its hospitable entertainer. But
sometimes the parasite transfers itself by its own activity
and locomotion from the earlier host to the later. Also
very noteworthy facts are that only some one species of
animal, or its close allies, is possible as intermediate host,
and that there is usually also but a limited choice as to
the second or final host — it must be one of some two or
three particular species of animals which are in close
relation to the earlier host.

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

In many cases the young stage of the parasite which
hatches from the egg of the adult can swim or crawl,
and so get into the primary or intermediate host. But
in the common tape-worm of man, called Taenia solium,
it does not leave the egg-shell until it, and usually a whole
lot of the eggs, contained in a joint or segment of a tape¬
worm, are swallowed by a pig — its usual primary host.
The minute creature which issues from each egg is a
little globe (i-200th of an inch across) armed with six
hooks. By aid of these it bores into the blood-vessels of
the pig’s intestine and so is carried by the blood-stream
into the muscles (flesh), where it is stopped by the narrow¬
ness of the fine blood-vessels. Here it (or rather “ they,”
for usually there are some hundreds together) grows and
becomes a little bladder as large as a big pea, and a
curious little head consisting of a circular crown of many
hooks and four suckers makes its appearance as an
inward growth of each bladder. Pork infected with
these little bladders is called “ measled,” and the
bladders are called the “ cysticercus ” or “ hydatid
phase ” of the tape-worm If eaten uncooked by a man
(as happens where “ raw meat ” is a popular dish), the
bladders are destroyed by mastication, but one or more
of the little heads survive and adhere to the wall of the
man’s intestine by means of their suckers and crown of
hooks. The adventurous young tape-worm has now
fixed itself in its final host. It grows rapidly — absorbing
the nutritive juices around it without the use of any
mouth or digestive canal. It gives rise to a long, tape¬
like growth which consists of segments or joints continu¬
ously produced by the fixed “ head.” Those nearest the
head are narrow and minute, but increase in size as they
are pushed forward by the growth of new ones behind
them. The string or “ tape ” becomes as much as io
feet long, and consists of 850 joints or segments of which

THE LIVER-FLUKE

the older — those farthest from the so-called “ head ” —
are three-quarters of an inch long and a third of an inch
broad. The oldest 400 joints are full of eggs, and those
at the free end continually break off and pass out of the
ntestine, each filled with many hundreds of eggs already
so far advanced in development as to contain six-hooked
embryos ready to be swallowed by a pig, and to recom¬
mence the story with which we started above.

There are many variations of this story in different
kinds of tape-worms. There is a minute tape-worm
only a quarter of an inch long, which lives in a dog or
a wolf as its final host. The bladder stage (hydatid
or cysticercus phase), which develops from this tape¬
worm’s eggs, occurs in man and herbivorous animals.
A single cyst, or bladder, thus developed grows to an
enormous size — as big as a cocoa-nut — fixing itself,
when quite minute, in the liver or lung of its primary
host. Not one (as in cysts of measled pork) but many
hundred minute “ heads ” consisting of a crown of hooks
and four suckers are budded off within the cyst and float
there until it bursts and the victim usually dies. Then
there is a chance that a dog or a wolf will lick up some of
the liquid containing the floating heads, each capable of
growing in the dog’s or wolf’s intestine into a ripe, egg¬
bearing little tape-worm. The “ staggers ” in sheep is
produced by the cystic or hydatid phase of another tape¬
worm, which develops in the sheep’s brain, whilst the
tape-worm matures in the sheep-dog — its final host. The
list of tape-worms and their hosts could be greatly ex¬
tended and would include a variety of birds, reptiles,
and fishes as well as simpler invertebrate creatures. A
very striking feature is the enormous abundance either
of the eggs produced in the final stage, or if not of them,
then of the individual heads budded from a cyst in the

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

primary host. It is clear that the chances of any indi¬
vidual tape-worm born of an egg getting through his
allotted course of life — reaching in due order, first the
correct primary host and then, by the misfortune of that
primary host in being eaten, the correct final host — are very
small. And so the number of individuals produced and
entering on the venture has to be enormous. Thousands,
even hundreds of thousands, must start, in order that
one or two may come triumphantly through to the final
adult stage and reproduce themselves by eggs and sperm.

And now we return to the liver-fluke. Some of the
Trematoda, to which group the flukes belong, are external
parasites and cling with their suckers on to the gills of
fishes. Others have only one host and venture as para¬
sites only into the cavities of some aquatic animals, with¬
out presenting any striking peculiarities except in their
elaborate suckers. The flukes, on the other hand —
properly so called — have the mouth sucker and usually a
second as in the liver-fluke (Fig. 23, A). The young
hatched from the eggs of the adult, very unlike their
parent, pass into a primary host — usually a mollusc — in
which they multiply abundantly, producing strange forms,
some of the offspring of which eventually get to the
final host, usually a vertebrate, and, becoming adult,
lay eggs.

In the case of the liver-fluke — Distomum hepaticum
— the final host is the sheep — sometimes oxen and rarely
man. The question has been (but now is solved), “ What
is the intermediate host and what is the history of the
young fluke in connection with it ? ” It has been long
known that sheep in marshy pasture-land liable to be
flooded, often become infected, and when, some fifty
years ago, the history of some species of flukes which

THE LIVER-FLUKE

infest birds as their final host was traced to snails as
primary hosts, it seemed likely that some kind of water-
snail would prove to be the primary host of the liver-
fluke of the sheep. The common pond-snails — Limnaea
and Planorbis, of which I wrote in Chapter IV —
were known to be attacked by the young hatched from
the eggs of certain flukes (as many as eight kinds) which
attain their adult condition in birds and other verte¬
brates. They hatch in fresh water when the fluke’s
eggs are passed from the birds, as minute, very active
swimming creatures about the fiftieth of an inch long.
These young swim about by means of a clothing of
vibratile hairs and have a pair of eye-spots (Fig. 23, B).
This young stage is called a “ miracidium.” The ciliated
miracidia of some kinds of flukes when they happen to
swim into the neighbourhood of an ordinary pond-snail
(Limnaea stagnalis) seem to be drawn to it by a
chemical attraction (smell or taste) and make their way
into its soft body. Here they undergo a change of shape
and increase in size, losing their coat of motile hairs.
They produce young by internal budding (Fig. 23, C),
which may in their turn multiply by internal budding
and sooner or later produce a great number of curiously
shaped worms, which are called “ King’s yellow worms ”
on account of their colour, or “ Redia ” — after the old
Italian naturalist Redi, who described them but did not
know their history. The Redia with its curious pair of
lappets marked m. m. is shown in Fig. 23, D. The
earlier forms are called “ sporocysts.” The Redia
produces other Rediae by internal budding, but also very
soon, and as a final step before breaking up, the Redia
produces within itself a number of minute tadpole-like
creatures which are called Cercariae. These escape from
the snail and swim about in the water, lashing their
tails (Fig. 23, E). The Cercaria is seen on examination

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

to be nothing more than a minute fluke with circum-oral
sucker (Fig. 23, E, r.), and a large hinder sucker (j.),
though it is peculiar in possessing a lashing, active tail
like that of a tadpole. The Cercaria, in one way or
another (not fully made out in every case), manages to
get swallowed by the bird which is its final host. Often
the whole snail, with its stock of completed Cercariae
within it, is swallowed by the bird. Once inside the
bird’s stomach the Cercaria loses its tail and slowly
grows to be an adult fluke. It was not until the par¬
ticular kind of pond-snail requisite for these stages of
development in the case of the liver-fluke was discovered
that the whole history of that parasite could be traced.
The ciliated young, or miracidia, of the liver-fluke are
easily hatched from the eggs of that worm when it is
ripe and removed from the liver of a dead sheep, but
they were not attracted by the common pond-snail,
Limnaea stagnalis, nor by the flat-coiled snail Planorbis,
nor by other species such as Limnaea perigra and other
kinds of snails. Under these circumstances Mr. Thomas
examined the water-meadows near Oxford, where
“ sheep-rot ” was frequent, and he found that after the
floods had receded there were large numbers of a very
small kind of pond-snail, about one-fifth of an inch long,
known as Limnaea truncatula, adhering to the grass
from which the water had disappeared. He collected
a quantity of this small water-snail and brought them to
the laboratory, where he had a glass basin in which
hundreds of the ciliated miracidia hatched from the eggs
of the sheep’s fluke were swimming. I myself saw the
experiment. He placed two or three of the little snails
in the water. They expanded and began to crawl, but
immediately, as though drawn by a magnet, the ciliated
young or miracidia swam at them and violently pressed
on to and into their bodies. The right snail was found

THE LIVER-FLUKE

at last ! Mr. Thomas had then no difficulty in infecting
a large number and following day by day the growth and
changes which the little parasites undergo in the Limnaea
truncatula. The chief of these are exhibited in Fig. 23,
copied from the memoir published by Mr. Thomas
in the “ Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science,”
1883. I have already explained these figures, taking
them to exhibit several features which are present in the
whole group of “ flukes.” An important fact, observed
long ago, but re-established by Mr. Thomas, is that the
Cercariae swimming in the flood waters as they recede,
attach themselves, each in a sort of slimy case, to the
blades of grass and so are eaten by the sheep when they
return to the pasture. Numbers of the little pond-snails
infested with the liver-fluke’s Cercariae, or tadpoles, are
left high and dry on the grass, and may be eaten with the
grass by the sheep unless removed or destroyed.

A very serious disease is caused in Africa by an
elongated species of fluke which lives in the blood of man
and is called Bilharzia. It has been shown that in this
parasite also a water-snail serves as the intermediate
host. I may, perhaps, point out that to prevent his sheep
from being attacked by liver-fluke, the farmer (in Europe
and Asia) must keep them away from meadows which
have been recently flooded, and must also take steps to
prevent the survival of the Limnaea truncatula up to the
time when the flooded land is re-entered. In North and
South America and the Sandwich Islands, other allied
species of Limnaea are reported as acting the part of
primary host to the liver-fluke, and in Australia a snail of
the genus Bulimus is said to take it over. But detailed
information is wanting.

CHAPTER VIII
PROGRESS !

THE word “ progress ” primarily signifies “ a
stepping forwards ” — forwards not in relation
to some real or imaginary goal the arrival at
which we assume to be desirable, but merely in regard
to the individual moving — in fact, a stepping “ front¬
wards ” as opposed to standing still or to stepping
“ backwards.” In the course of the past few centuries
it has, however, acquired a definite secondary limitation
— that of the movement or development of human society
towards a desirable goal — namely, earthly felicity,
happiness, even perfection — or towards the attainment
of perfect happiness in a future state of existence. The
measure of “ progress ” thus necessarily has varied ac¬
cording to the conception of” happiness ” — about which
there have always been divergent opinions, and never an
accepted definition. The philosophers of antiquity were
pessimists : they did not entertain a belief in progress,
but, on the contrary, held (with the notable exception
of the Epicureans) that we are receding from a long-
past golden age of happiness.

The notion of earthly progress was opposed by the
Christian Church, which endeavoured to fix men’s minds
on a future state of rewards and punishments. A belief

PROGRESS !

in the distribution of these by its intervention was the
chief basis of the authority and power of the Church.
The spirit of the Renaissance — the challenge to the
authority of the ancients and of the Church, the emanci¬
pation of the natural man in the fields of art and of
literature, and, later, in the sphere of philosophical
thought — was accompanied by the development of the
idea of progress. Ramus, a mathematician, writes in
the year 1569 : “ In one century we have seen a greater
progress in men and works of learning than our ancestors
had seen in the whole course of the previous fourteen
centuries.” The French historian, Jean Bodin, about
the same time, reviewing the history of the world, was
the first definitely to deny the degeneration of man, and
comes (as Prof. Bury tells us in his fascinating book
“ The Idea of Progress ”) nearer to the idea of progress
than anyone before him. “ He is,” says Prof. Bury,
“ on the threshold.” And then the Professor proceeds
to trace through the writings of successive generations
of later philosophers and historians — such as Le Roy,
Francis Bacon, Descartes, the founders of the Royal
Society, and others, such as Leibniz, Fontenelle, de
Saint-Pierre, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Turgot, Rousseau,
Condorcet, Saint-Simon, and Comte — the various forms
which this idea of “ progress ” assumed, its expansions
and restrictions, its rejection and its defence, until we
come to the Great Exhibition of 1851 — a demonstration
and forecast (from a certain point of view) of progress —
and, later still, to the new aspect given to the idea of
progress by the doctrine of evolution and the theories
of Darwin and of Spencer.

We are thus provided with a valuable history of an
important line of human thought. But the most inter¬
esting part to many of us must be the closing pages in

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

which the actual state of the idea of progress as it appears
in the light of evolution is sketched, and the questions are
raised, which it has not been Prof. Bury’s purpose to
discuss, namely, Granted that there has been progress,
in what does it consist ? Is it likely to continue ? Does
the doctrine of evolution, now so firmly established, lead
us to suppose that “ progress ” will continue, and, if so,
what will be its character ? Or is it (however we define
it) coming to an end ? Will stagnation, or will decay
and degeneration, as some suppose, necessarily follow ?
Or is “ progress ” (whatever one may mean by that
word) a law of human nature ?

The doctrine of the gradual evolution of the inorganic
universe had already gained wide acceptance before the
epoch when Darwin’s “ Origin of Species ” brought man
into the area of evolution, and established the accepted
belief in the “ progress ” of man from an animal ancestry
to the present phase of the more civilized races. It
does not follow as a matter of course that such a develop¬
ment means the movement of man to a desirable goal.
But (as Prof. Bury reminds us) Darwin, after pointing
to the fact that all the living forms of life are lineal
descendants of those which lived long before the Silurian
epoch, argues that we may look with some confidence
to a secure future of equally immeasurable length ; and,
further, that, as natural selection works solely by and for
the good of each being, all corporeal and mental endow¬
ments will tend to progress towards perfection. Darwin
was a convinced optimist.

Equally so was Spencer. According to him, change
is the law of all things, and man is no exception to it.
Humanity is indefinitely variable, and perfectibility is
possible. All evil results from the non-adaptation of the

PROGRESS !

organism to its conditions. In the present state of the
world men suffer many evils, and this shows that their
characters are not yet adjusted to the social state. Now
the qualification requisite for the social state is that each
individual shall have such desires only as may fully be
satisfied without trenching upon the ability of others to
obtain similar satisfaction. This qualification is not
yet fulfilled, because civilized man retains some of the
characteristics which were suitable for the conditions
of his earlier predatory life. He needed one moral
constitution for his primitive state ; he requires quite
another for his present state. The result is a process of
adaptation which has been going on for a long time, and
will go on for a long time to come. Civilization repre¬
sents the adaptations which have already been accom¬
plished. Progress means the successive steps of the
process. (There we have the scientific definition of human
progress according to the apostle of evolution.) The
ultimate development of the ideal man by this process
(says Spencer) is logically certain — as certain as any
conclusion in which we place the most implicit faith :
for instance, that men will all die. Progress is thus held
by Spencer to be not an accident, but a necessity. In
order that the human race should enjoy the greatest
amount of happiness, each member of the race should
possess faculties enabling him to experience the
highest enjoyment of life, yet in such a way as
not to diminish the power of others to receive like
satisfaction.

Let me say, in order to avoid misapprehension, that
in what follows I am not citing Prof. Bury, but stating my
own opinions and suggestions. It has been urged in
opposition to the optimistic doctrine of Darwin and
Spencer that it is a prominent fact of history that every

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

great civilization of the past progressed to a point at
which, instead of advancing further, it stood still and
declined. Arrest, decadence, decay, it is urged, have
been the rule. This, however, is but the superficial view
of the historian who limits his vision to the last four or
five thousand years of man’s development. It is not
confirmed when we trace man from the flint-chippers of
500,000 years ago to the present day.

Naturalists are familiar with the phenomenon of
degeneration in animal descent. Higher, more elaborate
forms have sometimes given rise to simplified, dwindled
lines of descent, specialized and suited to their pecu¬
liar environments. The frequent occurrence of such
development in the direction of simplification and
inferiority, and even the extinction of whole groups or
branches of the genealogical tree of organisms, endowed
with highly developed structural adaptations, and the
survival of groups of extreme simplicity of structure, does
not invalidate the truth of the conclusion as to a vast
and predominating evolution — with increase of structure
and capacity — of the whole stock of animal and vegetable
organisms. A similar line of argument applies to the
long and extended history of mankind.

The conclusion adverse to the reality of the evolu¬
tional progress of mankind which is held by those who
declare that the ancient Greeks and other products of
human evolution of like age had developed a degree of
artistic execution and feeling, of devotion to intellectual
veracity and ideal justice, to which more modern civiliza¬
tion has not attained, is a fanciful exaggeration in which
it pleases some enthusiasts to indulge. But an examina¬
tion of the facts makes [it [abundantly clear that the
conclusion is altogether erroneous.

PROGRESS !

Another attempt to discredit the belief in progress
consists in an ambiguous use of the word “ happiness ”
when it is declared that the teeming millions of China or
even the herds of sheep browsing on our hill-sides are
“ happier ” than the civilized peoples of Europe and
America. Spencer’s definition of the goal of human
progress as determined by the general laws of organic
evolution should lead in this discussion either to the
abandonment of the use of the vague term “ happiness,”
or to a critical examination of the state of feeling which
it implies, and of the causes to which they are specifically
related.

When we ask whether the conditions which have
been the essential factors in human evolution and progress
are still in operation and likely to operate for an indefinite
period in the same direction, there is, it seems, in spite of
the view as to their permanence held both by Spencer
and by Darwin, room for doubt and for re-examination
of the situation. The struggle for existence, the natural
selection thereby of favoured variations, and their
transmission by physical heredity from parent to offspring,
suffice to explain the evolution of man’s bodily structure
from that of preceding ape-like animals, and even to
account for the development of man’s brain to greatly
increased size and efficiency.

But a startling and most definite fact in this connec¬
tion has to be considered and its significance appreciated.
The fact to which I refer is that since prehistoric man,
some hundred thousand years ago, attained the bodily
structure which man to-day possesses, there has been no
further development of that structure — measurable and
of such quality as separates the animals nearest to man
from one another. Yet man has shown enormous

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

“ progress ” since that remote epoch. The brain and
the mental faculties connected with it have become the
dominant and only progressive, “ evolving,” attribute of
man. Nevertheless, in regard to the brain there is, since
the inception of the new phase of development which
we have now to consider, no increase of size, though were
we able to compare the ultimate microscopic structure
of the brains of earlier and later man we should almost
certainly find an increased complexity in the minute
structure of the later brain.

It seems to be the fact that — when once man had
acquired and developed the power of communicating and
receiving thought, by speech with his fellow-man (so
as to establish, as it were, mental co-operation), and yet
further of recording all human thought for the common
use of both present and future generations, by drawing
and writing (to be followed by printing) — a totally new
factor in human evolution came into operation of such
overwhelming power and efficiency as to supersede
entirely the action of natural selection of favoured bodily
variations of structure in the struggle for existence.
Language provided the mechanism of thought. Re¬
corded language — preserved and handed on from
generation to generation as a thing external to man’s
body — became an ever-increasing gigantic heritage,
independent of the mechanism of variation and of the
survival of favoured variations which had hitherto
determined the organic evolution of man as of his
ancestry. The observation, thought, and tradition of
humanity, thus independently accumulated, continually
revised, and extended, have given to later men that
directing impulse which we call the moral sense, that
still, small voice of conscience, the voice of his father-
men, as well as that knowledge and skill which we call

PROGRESS !

science and art. These things are, and have been, of
far greater service to man in his struggles with the
destructive forces of Nature and with competitors of his
own race than has been his strength of limb and jaw.
Yet they are not “ inborn ” in man. The young of man¬
kind enter upon the world with a mind which is a blank
sheet of “ educable ” quality, upon which, by the care of
his elders or by the direction of his own effort, more or
less of the long results of time embodied in the Great
Record, the chief heritage of humanity, may be inscribed.

From this point of view it becomes clear that know¬
ledge of “ that which is,” and primarily, knowledge
of the Great Record, must be the most important factor
in the future “ Progress of Mankind.” Thus one of the
greatest services which man can render to his fellows is
to add to the common heritage by making new know¬
ledge of “ that which is,” whilst a no less important
task is that of sifting truth from error, of establishing an
unfailing devotion to veracity, and of promoting the
prosperity of present and future generations of his race
by facilitating, so far as lies within human power, the
assimilation by all men of the chief treasures of human
experience and thought.

The laws of this later “ progress ” are not, it would
seem, those of man’s earlier evolution. What they are,
how this new progress is to be made more general and
its continuance assured, what are the obstacles to it and
how they are to be removed, are matters which have not
yet been adequately studied. The infant science of
psychology must eventually help us to a better under¬
standing. Not only the reasoning intelligence, but also
the driving power of emotion must be given due con¬
sideration. “ Education ” not only of the youth, but
6

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

also of the babe and of the adult, must become the all-
commanding interest of the community. Progress will
cease, to a large extent, to be a blindly attained outcome
of natural selection ; it will acquire new characteristics
as the conscious purpose of rational man.

CHAPTER IX

IS NATURE CRUEL ?

THE proposition that “ Nature is cruel ” is often
discussed in an off-hand way and readily fur¬
nishes a text for the most divergent expressions
of reason or of sentiment. The fact is that the funda¬
mental difficulty of all human conceptions as to the origin
and governance of the universe — namely, the existence of
evil — is raised by it, whilst at the same time the terms
“ Nature ” and “ cruel ” can be defined at will to mean
as much or as little as the disputant may choose.

The book by my friend Mr. H. G. Wells, entitled
“ The Undying Fire,” is a beautiful and fascinating
parody of the great discussion between Job and his
comforters. It is in many respects the finest of his
efforts to bring home to all thoughtful men their posses¬
sion of a deep-lying faith which, variously disguised by
words and metaphors, they yet inevitably share as an
indestructible inheritance from long ages of human
struggle and victory. In Mr. Wells’s book the staggering
problem of “ Cruelty in Nature ” is trenchantly set forth.
A ruined schoolmaster — the Job of the story — over¬
whelmed by financial and professional disaster, appalled
by the horrors of the war which has taken his only son —
tortured by a wretched wife — and now smitten by a
deadly and painful disease — sets out, weary as he is, for

a walk in the country, led on by visions of cool green

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

shade and kindly streams beneath the trees and by desire
for the fellowship of shy and gentle creatures.

But, instead of gaining rest and comfort, he is attacked
by bloodthirsty gnats and flies, and the itching torture
caused by those minute red beasts the “ harvesters.”
A young rabbit, torn and bloody, lies in his path ; the
victims of a butcher-bird, spiked on thorns, wriggle on
a hawthorn-bush. A villainous-looking cat drops a
mangled young bird at his feet. Then for the rest of the
day our Job can think of nothing but the feeble miseries
of living things. He passes in review the constant panic,
the savage sexual combats of the great beasts — the
buffalo and the rhinoceros — the ceaseless prowling of
the murderous but sickly tiger. Then he expatiates with
scientific accuracy on the horrors of parasitic infection
by worms, moulds, and bacteria, and finally reviews the
reckless, destructive cruelty of profit-seeking man, who,
in the remote Antarctic, driven by his insatiable greed,
boils down penguins and whales for their fat and consigns
their young to starvation without remorse, and in other
regions burns and uproots forests, leaving arid deserts as
the monuments of his activity. “ Is this,” he asks, “ a
world made for the happiness of sentient things ? I
ask you how is it possible for man to be other than a
rebel in the face of such facts ? . . . For these things
are not in the nature of sudden creations and special
judgments ; they have been produced fearfully and
wonderfully by a process of evolution as slow and deliber¬
ate as our own. How can man trust such a maker to
treat him fairly ? Why should we shut our eyes to things
that stare us in the face ? Either the world of life is the
creation of a being inspired by a malignity at once filthy,
petty, and enormous, or it displays a carelessness, an
indifference, a disregard for justice. ...”

IS NATURE CRUEL ?

I think we may without hesitation limit the word
“ cruelty ” in any such discussion as this to the infliction
of pain by a reasoning intelligent being on another
sentient being (i) either with the intention of deriving
pleasure from the contemplation of the evidences of
suffering which he has produced, or (2) in pursuit of some
end of his own in the attainment of which he is entirely
disregardful of the pain he may cause to others or of the
relative proportion which the possibly beneficent altruistic
quality of the end he is pursuing bears to the amount
of pain which he inflicts. We cannot admit for the pur¬
pose of this discussion the poetical use of the word “cruel,”
which applies to the mere occurrence of pain or the unin¬
telligent agents of pain, such as storm, fire, claw, and tooth.
The “ cruel crawling foam, the cruel hungry foam ” of
Charles Kingsley’s “ Sands o’ Dee ” is a legitimate per¬
sonification of the death-dealing waters — all the more so
that it is a return to the mode of thought of primitive man
— but we must not be led away by such poetical imagery
from the real significance of the statement that Nature is
cruel. Only an intelligent, reasoning being can be cruel.

Nature, if by that word we mean merely the winds,
rocks, seas, and the unintelligent, unreasoning living
things — plants and animals — which are known to us —
cannot be “ cruel.” If we assert that this vast mechanism
which we call “ Nature ” is cruel, we imply that it is the
instrument of an intelligent, reasoning being to whom we
attribute cruelty. There is no escape from that proposi¬
tion, except by the assumption that the Creator is neither
1 omnipotent nor omniscient, and cannot control what he
i has made.

Mankind has been very unwilling to admit that it is
incapable of forming a satisfactory conception of the

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

Creator. Man has persisted in declaring not merely his
capacity but his right and even his duty to create a
Creator, and naturally has created one in his own image.
The Creator has very generally been held to be a man¬
like being, differing from man in the fact that he is
omnipotent and omniscient and “ immaterial ” in
substance. At the same time man has revolted against
the inevitable conclusion that the Creator is cruel,
although in his earlier fancy that was a prominent
feature of his conception.

By various devices he has tried to remove this defect
from his conception of the Creator, whom he has made
the object of his adoration and worship. He has (in past
days) called into existence alongside of the Creator a
second immaterial being, “ Satan,” to whom he assigned
the part of author of all evil. Satan was, however,
declared to be a “ fallen angel,” one of the Creator’s
works, and his introduction, therefore, though purifying,
as it were, the character of the Creator, does not remove
from that Being the authorship of cruelty and all other
evils, unless he is no longer supposed to be either omni¬
potent or omniscient. “ Manichaeism ” is the name of
the ancient Persian religion (A.D. 270), which most fully
taught this dual system — identifying the Evil One with
Darkness and the Beneficent One with Light.

It is interesting to find that Mr. Job Huss, the suffer¬
ing schoolmaster of Mr. Wells’s book, boldly accepts and
finds comfort in the dual theory — the powers of Evil in
the outer world on the one hand and the “ undying fire,”
the “ God in my heart,” on the other. They are con¬
ceptions similar to the “ Veiled Being ” and the Invisible
King of Mr. Wells’s earlier work, and enable him to
present a very noble picture of man’s unquenchable

IS NATURE CRUEL ?

hope, his wavering but ever-returning courage, his in¬
destructible faith in the ultimate triumph of right.

But others have attempted to face the difficulty — as,
for instance, did John Stuart Mill — by the admission that
if we believe in the existence of a beneficent Creator of
the universe we must suppose that he is not omnipotent,
or he would have avoided the creation of evil, or else
that he is not omniscient, and so is unable to foresee the
results of his creative activity.

Another and more modest solution of the difficulty
has always been present to the minds of thoughtful men,
including the writer of the Book of Job. What justifica¬
tion (they would say) have we for creating a Creator in
our own image — with human standards of right and
wrong, with intentions, thoughts, conceptions which can
be comprehended by our small minds and expressed
by our inept words reflecting our paltry experiences ?
None. So far are we from knowing the ultimate con¬
ditions of existence that we must admit that possibly
what we call good cannot exist unless accompanied by
what we call evil — that possibly what we call well-being
and happiness is necessarily and inevitably conditioned
by pain.

It is true that man through the ages has shown, as
he has gradually developed, a determined opposition to
the pains and restrictions imposed upon him as upon
other animals by the play of natural forces. He has
under the schooling of pain acquired an ever-increasing
reasoning intelligence and that unique mysterious endow¬
ment which we call “ consciousness.” From this point
of view he may be regarded as “ Nature’s rebel,” ever¬
more using his mental gifts in order to escape or to

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

mitigate or antagonize the pains and penalties to which
other living things — devoid of those gifts — have to submit.
I have written of his efforts as “ Nature’s Insurgent
Son ” in the Romanes lecture delivered at Oxford in
1905, reprinted in my book “ The Kingdom of Man.”
Long ago the Greek poet, Sophocles, celebrated man’s
skill and triumphs — in a chorus of the “ Antigone ” —
ending with the words :

“ Stratagem hath he for all that comes ! Never the future
Finds him resourceless ! Grievous diseases he combats,

Oft from their grip doth he free himself. Death alone, vainly,
Vainly he seeks to escape; 'gainst Death he is helpless.”

But we may, perhaps, more justly regard man not as
Nature’s rebel but rather as Nature’s pupil. The pains,
that which some would rashly call “ the cruelty ” of
Nature, are the very means — must we not believe the
only possible means ? — by which man’s unique mental
quality, his undying fire, his conscience, his soul, has
been set a-growing and is henceforth kept creating the
tradition and records of the race, though the individual
passes away in the slumber of death.

The scene of animal suffering pictured by Job Huss
in “ The Undying Fire ” is exaggerated by the morbid
sensibility of that unfortunate man. Whatever the
measure we assign to that suffering it must be recognized
as a part of the great process by which human life and
conscious happiness has been evolved from non-sentient
“ primeval slime.” More than sixty years ago Mr.
Rowell, then curator of the Ashmolean Museum, greatly
interested the University of Oxford by his essay on “ the
beneficent nature of pain.” He insisted on the fact that
the nerves, by the stimulation of which painful sensations
are produced, are so disposed on the animal body as to
protect it from injury and destruction — the shrinking or

IS NATURE CRUEL?

evasive movements which follow their stimulation (often
automatically) being such as to withdraw this or that
limb or other part of the body from laceration, destruc¬
tive pressure, burning, or other dangerous contact, or else
to cause the animal to flee, to hide, to attack, or other¬
wise avoid hostile destructive agencies. Were it not for
pain, he argued, and we may add its correlative fear,
animals would knock themselves to pieces, blunder into
every kind of destructive situation — and animals would
speedily come to an end. Those who would maintain
that this is a “ cruel ” ordering of life must hold either
that an intelligent Creator, if not cruel, would have ab¬
stained altogether from creating life, or would have made
it altogether insensible to pain, though reacting to pro¬
tective stimuli. In default of this they must deny what I
am inclined to maintain — namely, that the ultimate evolu¬
tion from living matter of conscious, reasoning, pro¬
gressive, adventurous man is in itself so great a good as to
vastly outweigh the relatively small accompanying pain.

I have ventured to speak of the pain of animals and
man as small compared with the splendour and benefi¬
cence which increasingly appertain to human life. I
frankly accept the doctrine that, looking at life as a
whole, present pain is the necessary step to abounding
joy and contentment.

I recognize that the admission of pain to this place of
toleration must be considered as a question of proportion.
And it therefore becomes important that we should have
■ — what is no easy matter — some definite apprehension, if
possible some measure, of what we call pain. We only
really know “ pain ” by feeling it ourselves. We infer
that others — similar to ourselves in structure, habit, and
expression — have under identical conditions identical

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

experience of pain. We too readily regard the violence
of shrinking movement, cries, and efforts to escape as not
merely convincing evidence of pain, but as a measure
of its intensity. Yet we are all familiar with facts which
show that such evidence is fallacious. God forbid that
we should ever under-estimate or be indifferent to the
terrible suffering which many of our fellow-men have
experienced, and which others do now and will in the
future experience ! But we must at once accept as a
fact that pain is a mental condition which is not measur¬
able either by the nature and severity of an injury or by
the cries and struggles which follow such injury. We
know that a break in the great nerve complex, the spinal
cord, will result in loss of all sensation below the region of
injury, although violent movement (usually regarded as
indicative of pain) and shrinking from pain will continue.
We know that anaesthetics will arrest the consciousness
of pain and that what is called “ the hypnotic con¬
dition ” can be induced without the administration of any
drug and can be used for the same purpose. We know
that strong, healthy men are much less sensitive to what
are usually pain-giving blows and injuries than are
more delicate, so-called “ nervous ” individuals. The
Australian “ savages ” decorate their bodies by cutting
and scarring them without regard to pain, and the Poly¬
nesians used to batter one another’s skulls without serious
suffering — to an extent incomprehensible to Europeans.
Mere excitement or intense preoccupation often renders
men indifferent to — and even unaware of — injuries which,
in other circumstances, would be intensely painful.
Hence we must be cautious in measuring the pain even of
our fellow-men by the presumed pain-causing quality of
an injury or by the movements and cries which it excites.
Still more so is this the case when we endeavour to
estimate the pain endured by animals — other than man.

IS NATURE CRUEL ?

We have, then, reason to believe that pain is a pro¬
tection to animals (including man in that category), an
automatic warning to avoid self-destruction and danger.
The lower animals — leaving aside for the moment the
warm-blooded mammals and birds— exhibit very definite
life-preserving mechanisms which act automatically
when danger or injury occurs, and, in many cases, have
been shown experimentally to be unassociated with a
condition identical with that of the “ pain ” of conscious
man. We have no reason to suppose that the movements
of an injured earth-worm are in any way an expression or
measure of pain : they are vigorous efforts to remove or
escape from a life-threatening agency. The great student
of insect life and behaviour — M. Fabre — states as his
conclusion that insects are marvellous automata and
that Us ne savent rien de rien. We are not justified
in supposing that they feel pain. We cannot admit
that Isabella (in “ Measure for Measure ”) is right when
she says :

"The poor beetle, that we tread upon,

In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies.”

What she says just before — namely, that “ the sense of
death is most in apprehension,” is, on the other hand,
profoundly true in regard to man, though probably
not in regard to any animals, and it is also true of man
if we substitute for “ sense of death ” the “ sense of
pain.” Thus we are led to conclude that the slaughtered
rabbit, the butcher-bird’s larder, the fluttering bird
dropped by the cat, and the vast array of parasites cited
by Mr. Job Huss are not evidences of a vast amount
of suffering comparable to that which a conscious,
reflecting human being might experience were he the
victim. We are not warranted in supposing that even
he would necessarily suffer to the extent which imagina-

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

tion and sympathy suggest. It is very doubtful whether
the higher animals hunted and wounded by man and by
carnivorous animals, or fighting with one another, experi¬
ence much pain. Their excitement inhibits pain, as
we learn from men who have escaped after having been
mauled and carried off by a lion. It appears certain
that such highly organized creatures as fish have no
prolonged suffering as the result of injury, though
probably a “ pang ” is experienced by them, sufficient
to turn them momentarily from a dangerous situation.
A fish has been caught by a hook on which its own eye
had been accidentally impaled and torn from its head.
It was greedily “ taken ” by the fish as a bait.

I know how disagreeable a subject this is, and how
readily one can be misunderstood and misjudged when
one attempts to state the truth about it. But one striking
illustration of the fact that shrinking, and what often
passes for evidence of great pain, may be a misinterpreta¬
tion of automatic protective movements is afforded by the
less shocking instance of the sensitive plant (Mimosa).
When a leaflet of this plant is pinched, it and its neigh¬
bouring leaflets quickly droop, one by one. If the leaf-
stem is struck the whole group of pinnate leaves close
down and the stem bends quickly and deeply as though
in acute pain and fear. Yet this is only the result of the
movement of liquid within certain tracts of tissue in the
plant serving it as a protection against assault. After a
few minutes the stems rise again and the leaflets expand
in neatly ordered rows. We are surely not justified in
supposing that the sensitive plant suffers what we human
creatures call “ pain.” It is certain that a vast number
of lower animals are as incapable of feeling pain as is the
sensitive plant. Even the highest animals are far less
liable to continued pain than are civilized men.

IS NATURE CRUEL ?

A word seems necessary as to the attribution of cruelty
to the cat when “ playing ” with an injured mouse. The
cat, not being a reasoning conscious being, is incapable
of cruelty. Its behaviour is automatic, as also is that of
the mouse. The cat takes no pleasure in the signs of
suffering as such, shown by the mouse, and if it could or
did do so, it would misinterpret the movements of the
mouse, which are not accompanied by pain any more,
or very little more, than is the jumping of a ball of paper
pulled by a string.

Thus we are led to the judgment that the supposition
that there is an immense amount of needless pain going on
in the world is a misinterpretation of the facts. There
is pain, but it is mostly short and sharp and of a directive
and protective character. Man has been, and is still
being, educated by pain. He has to a large extent gained
control of it or learnt to avoid it — in so far as he is himself
concerned — but there is still a gigantic task in this con¬
nection before him. He has not yet put an end to war,
famine, and disease. It seems that this strange and
directive thing — the liability to pain — increases and
appears in unforeseen ways, as man becomes more
developed. Education and the great tradition — the
record of humanity, the creator of his soul and its “ un¬
dying flame ” — whilst they have enabled him to avoid
many causes of pain — are building up new ones for him.
An endless variety of “ things ” — experiences, actions,
relations which were to him matters of indifference —
have now become active sources of either pleasure or of
pain. A large and important branch of the attempt to
understand the history and origin of pain is indicated by
this consideration, but I cannot now pursue it.

The main tendency of what I have said leads to the

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

conclusion that pain is not, in the great scheme of the
universe, “ cruel,” but the beneficent guide of the develop¬
ment of sentient beings. Man’s sense of justice leads
him to condemn the infliction of even the smallest
amount of pain on man by his fellow-man, for however
good a purpose, without the assent of the sufferer. Still
more does he resent the conclusion of his own life (to the
inception of which he has not been a consenting party)
by inevitable and arbitrary death. But he does not
“ curse God and die,” a course which is freely open to him.
On the contrary, he clings to his life and its more or less
painful incidents for the sake of the pleasure which he
derives from his own adventurous existence and from
sympathy with that of his race. He continually and
necessarily balances “ pain ” against “ well-being ” and
voluntarily submits himself and others to a present but
transient pain in order to gain the larger well-being
and happiness — not of himself alone but of future
men.

Similarly, he finds that every moment of his life is
dependent on the destruction and unconsenting painful
experience — evanescent as it is — of a host of lower
animals and of plants. He does not act in consequence
according to the formal rules of an impossible and
visionary justice : he deliberately balances the good
against the evil. In proportion as he is reasonable and
intelligent he uses his weaker living companions with
such moderation and mercy as are consistent with the
continued development of the life and soul of man. In
so doing he is consciously or unconsciously striving
to adjust his aims and his actions to the “ one in¬
creasing purpose” — Great Nature’s unfolding — which
has brought him from the womb of time to his present
estate.

CHAPTER X

THE SENSES AND SENSE-ORGANS

IN the skin and underlying the surfaces of deep-
lying organs inside the body there is an enormous
number of microscopically small root-like fibrils or
filaments of extreme tenuity penetrating in every direc¬
tion. They are the finest nerve filaments, threads, or
fibres. They gather together into skeins or “ strands,”
and these again into larger bundles called “ nerves,”
and thus pass from the surface and other parts of the
body where they commence, joining to form larger and
larger bundles until they reach the brain, either entering
it directly or by way of the great spinal cord, which lies
in the bony colonnade formed by the backbone or verte¬
bral column. There are nerve-fibres, the business of
which is to bring “ impulses ” — as it were, wordless
messages — from the body and its surface to the brain
and spinal cord. They are called “ afferent ” fibres.
And there are other nerve-fibres, undistinguishable in
appearance from these, and often mixed in with them in
one bundle or nerve, whose business it is to convey im¬
pulses or wordless messages from the brain and spinal cord
to muscles and gland-cells. They are called “ efferent ”
fibres. The rate of passage of these impulses has been
measured. They travel at the rate of 400 feet per second.

In this chapter we are concerned with the afferent

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

nerve-fibres. They are often called “ sensory nerve-
fibres,” whilst the efferent ones are called “ motor nerve-
fibres.” The endings or beginnings of the finest afferent
nerve-fibres or threads near the surface of the body or of
its internal cavities are of such a nature that the nerve-
fibres can be acted upon by various external agencies,
such as pressure, change of temperature, light, chemical
and electrical disturbance ; that is to say, the “ state ”
or condition of the living nerve-fibre can be definitely
altered by the impact of these agencies. The action of
these agencies on the nerve-fibres is spoken of as the
“ stimulation ” or “ excitation ” of the nerve-fibre. The
immediate fact by which this “ stimulation ” is made
evident is the setting up of rapid changes, both chemical
and electrical, in the substance of the nerve-fibre. These
rapid changes are called “ impulses ” or “ nerve-im¬
pulses,” and are transmitted or propagated along a nerve-
fibre with a quickness of 400 feet a second — which is
less than but resembles that of an electric current — until
they reach the nerve-cell to which it belongs, one of
millions contained in the brain and spinal cord. The
nerve-cell is a plump, granular lump of protoplasmic
substance, with a large spherical kernel or nucleus, and
with many branching fibrils reaching out from its sub¬
stance and joining it to other nerve-cells. The nerve-
cells with which we are here concerned are those which
exist by millions in the brain, and form what is called
“ the grey substance of the brain.” Arrived here the
impulse, or a whole series of such impulses coming to
many brain-cells, produces further changes, which give
rise to those mental conditions which we call “ sensa¬
tions.” I do not propose, at this moment, to go further
into the relation of the structure of the brain to mental
activities ; but I will say — what is the unshaken and
unanimous conviction of all physiologists — namely, that

THE SENSES AND SENSE-ORGANS

it is by “ sensations,” and only by sensations, that we
arrive at knowledge of the world around us and of our
own bodies.

In order that external agencies may thus act on the
fine terminal twigs of the nerves it is necessary that the
endings of these delicate filaments be connected with a
receptive apparatus, an “ end-organ,” as it is termed,
which is adapted to receive the special action of one or
other of the external agencies I have named above, and
so set up the stimulation of the fine nerve-threads which
end in it. There is one kind of end-organ which is
specially fitted to the action of light — or, as we say, is
specially “ sensitive ” to light ; another kind which is
specially sensitive to the vibrations of sound ; another
which is so for the chemical actions causing taste ;
another for those causing smell ; another for those set up
by mechanical pressure ; another for rise of temperature
(heat) ; another for fall of temperature (cold) ; another for
the changes of pressure in liquid-holding tubes caused by
alterations of balance and equilibrium ; another for the
muscular contractions which enable us to estimate
weight ; and another for those violent and destructive
changes in our tissues which cause the sensation which
we call “ pain.” There thus appear to be some ten dis¬
tinct groups of sensations, requiring and associated with
distinct end-organs connected with special nerve-fibres
and specially fitted to receive the stimulating influence of
ten different kinds of actions or changes which occur as
we live and move in relation to other existing things and
as they move and change around us.

The more or less elaborate mechanisms formed at the
free ends of sensory nerves are called “ sense-organs.”
The special capacity and working of a sense-organ is
7

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

called a “ sense.” Thus there are ten “ senses,” each of
a different kind, appropriate each to one of the ten different
kinds of sense-organs. The four first mentioned in my
list above given are often called “ special senses,” and
their end-organs are called the organs of special sense.
They are : (i) sight, (2) hearing, (3) smell, and (4) taste.
The organs of these senses are separate parts, distinctly
and easily recognized, and in the case of the first two
greatly elaborated and brought to perfection by obvious
“ accessory ” apparatus, which assists or helps to render
the sense-organ responsive to small quantities of the
stimulating agent and to other features connected
with it, such as the direction from which it comes and the
variation (often very great) in its special qualities.

Thus we have the eye (a pair or more in different
animals), which consists not merely of the light-sensitive
retina, built up by most peculiar end-cells (the retinal-
cells), in which the nerve-threads of the optic nerve
terminate, but of the eyeball, provided with lenses,
which can be “ focused ” so as to produce a picture in
its dark chamber, where the retina or sensitive plate is
spread, also provided with the series of muscles under
nerve-control which turn the axis of the eyeball in different
directions, and the circular curtain of the iris and also the
eyelids by which the amount of light entering the eyeball
can be regulated. There are also minute elaborations of
great importance in the retinal-cells, such as those con¬
nected with the discrimination of colours.

The second organ of “ special sense,” the ear
(usually, as in man, a pair), is less obvious than the eye.
For what we commonly call “ the ear ” is only an external
“ hearing trumpet,” the real organ of hearing being sunk
in the bones of the skull and called “ the internal ear.”

THE SENSES AND SENSE-ORGANS

It is an elaborately constructed membranous sac, con¬
taining liquid. It is of the shape of a coiled snail-shell,
with three loop-like tubes — the semicircular canals —
growing out of it. On its walls are distributed an im¬
mense profusion of bunches of fine nerves, which gather
together to constitute the auditory nerve. The ends of
these fine nerves penetrate the wall of the snail-shaped
sac, and are connected with peculiar end-cells and hair¬
like rods, forming in its inside a complex apparatus, of
which different elements are excited by the vibrations of
notes of different pitch, resulting in a difference of sensa¬
tion for all the immense variety of sounds and musical
combinations which assail it in the form of sound-
vibrations.

The organ of the sense of smell is placed on the
passage by which air enters the lungs — the nasal passage
— and the nerve-threads of the two olfactory nerves,
which pass directly from it to the brain, end (or, to put
it the other way, originate) in the nasal cavity in a multi¬
tude of rod-like cells, which cover the walls of the much-
folded and deep recesses into which ultra-microscopic
odoriferous particles or gases are carried by the inspired
air. The perfection of this sense-organ consists in its
sensibility to extremely minute quantities of odoriferous
matter, and its property of being differently affected by
odoriferous particles which differ only in the minutest
degree, chemically, from one another. Thus the dog is
differently affected by the odoriferous particles given off
by different human beings, and can thus recognize an
individual, or even his mere footprints, by his smell,
a power which, to judge by the size and structure
of his nasal cavities, man also, in some remote period,
possessed, but has (with some rare exceptions) now
lost.

100

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

The sense-organs of taste are found in the tongue :
they, like the organ of smell, are not so complex as the
organs of sight and hearing, but are limited to furnishing
a different sensation according to the chemical composi¬
tion of substances presented to them. The substances
which can be “ tasted ” must be soluble in water, and
the different sensations which they produce are only dis¬
tinguishable by us as sweet, bitter, sour, and salt, of
greater or less intensity. Very usually people call by
the name “ taste ” what is really due to the sense of smell.
All “ flavours ” of foods and drinks are really odours
which reach the olfactory organs from substances held
in the mouth. The end-organs of the nerve of taste are
little bulb-like groups of cells which are set on tuft-like
projections of the tongue or in circular grooves far back
on its surface. Bitter and sweet taste are dependent on
end-organs distinct from those which are concerned with
acid and salt taste, and there seem also to be separate
end-bulbs for sweet taste distinct from those for bitter
taste. The nerve-fibres connected with the taste-
organs do not unite to form a pure nerve of taste. The
optic nerve is formed purely by nerves from the retina,
the auditory nerve purely by nerves from the auditory
sac, and the olfactory nerve purely by nerves from the
olfactory recesses of the nasal cavity. But the taste nerve-
fibres pass to the brain in the glossopharyngeal nerve, and
also in the lingual branch of the fifth nerve in company
with fibres of other kinds. In this respect the sense of
taste resembles the less elaborated senses, namely, those of
touch, heat, cold, the muscular sense, the sense of pain,
and apparently also the sense of equilibrial pressure, which
though not concerned with sound-vibrations is conveyed to
the brain by fibres which form part of the auditory nerve.

These less elaborated and less specialized “ senses ”

THE SENSES AND SENSE-ORGANS 101

have until recent years been classed vaguely with the
sense of touch, and the term “ general sensibility ” has
also been used so as to include them. Thus, it was usual
to speak of the five senses, or five gateways of knowledge
— sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. But, really,
it seems that there is a distinct apparatus and distinct
nerve-threads, and a distinct sensation, for (i) the sense
of heat, (2) the sense of cold, (3) the muscular sense,
(4) the equilibrial sense, (5) the sense of pain, as well as
for (6) the sense of touch. So that we recognize ten
distinct senses. The nerve-fibres of the sense of touch
are distributed in the skin all over the body, and pass by
nerve-bundles, containing other kinds of nerves, to the
spinal cord and brain. The same is true of the sense of
heat, the sense of cold, the muscular sense, and the sense
of pain, with some qualification as to the precise regions
of the body thus provided. The nerves appear to end in
or between the surface-cells of the skin in the first two, and
in the muscular cells in the third. The sense of pain is
excited by the stimulation of nerves (in many, but not
all, parts of the body), by destructive processes, such as
cutting or crushing, and also especially by the condition
called inflammation. It is probable that only special
nerve-fibres are capable of being stimulated so as to
produce the sensation of pain.

It has been shown experimentally that the sensation
caused by contact of the skin of the hand or other part with
a surface which is quickly raised in temperature, or, as we
say, “ warmed,” may be brought about in a person who
has, by disease or injury, lost the sense of cold in that
part, that is to say, is unable to recognize a sudden fall in
the temperature to which it is exposed, and that a fall of
temperature in other cases is recognized where rise of
temperature produces no sensation. Hence it is inferred

102

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

that there are separate nerve-fibres and nerve-end-organs
concerned in the heat-sense and the cold-sense.

On the other hand, in many parts of the surface of
the body the sense of touch is more acutely developed than
it is in others, and there we find special end-organs
called tactile-bulbs. These are minute spherical or
oblong groups of compressed cells in which the termina¬
tions of nerve-fibres are enclosed. They are particularly
abundant in the fine ridges separated from one another
by grooves, which mark the finger-tips with whorls and
loop-like patterns. The sense of touch is the sense of
slight mechanical pressure — rough and smooth surfaces
causing difference of pressure when the finger, or what¬
ever part of the body is used as the exploring instrument,
is moved over such surface in contact with it. Great
tactile discrimination is thus possible, and we see the
extent to which it can be carried by the wonderful skill
obtained by the blind, who can not only read “ by touch ”
the embossed printing of the Braille books prepared for
them, but can distinguish and recognize a great variety
of surfaces of different kinds, which ordinary men who
are not dependent on their sense of touch, and so have
not cultivated it, cannot distinguish in that way. The
sense of touch is variously developed on regions of the
body other than the finger-tips, as may be shown by the
distance between two points of pressure (such as the tips
of a pair of compasses) required in order that their
existence as separate points of touch may be recognized.
Points, where nerve-fibres capable of stimulation by
touch exist, are surrounded by larger or smaller in¬
sensible areas. The points of sensibility are less closely
set in the less sensitive regions of the body surface.

With regard to the muscular sense, it seems that the

THE SENSES AND SENSE-ORGANS 103

cells of the muscular tissue may be the end-organ of the
sensory nerves. Such end-organs certainly exist and
enable us to estimate “ weight ” by the amount of mus¬
cular effort necessary to hold up a given body and prevent
it from falling to the ground.

The sense of equilibrium has its sense-organ in the
three semicircular canals of the internal ear. These
are membranous tubes filled with liquid and lying in
liquid. They are set in the three planes of a cube. A
new movement in any plane or the sudden cessation
of previous movement in any plane will cause more or
less of what is ordinarily called a “jerk ” or “ chuck ”
in the liquid-holding membranous tube, and as the three
ultimate planes of space of three dimensions are repre¬
sented by three corresponding semicircular tubes each
will be affected according to the direction of the move¬
ment, and a corresponding pressure on the end-organs
of the nerves distributed to its walls will result. Since
there is a set of these canals in the inner ear on each side
of the head, the apparatus furnishes the necessary nerve-
impulses and sensations for a comparison of the relation
of the two sides of the head to any movement, and con¬
sequently a resultant sensation which is indicative of
the equilibrium and poise of the head and of the direction
of movement. Birds in which one of the canals is injured
cannot fly ; they cannot “ feel ” their balance or want of
balance and adapt the movement of the wings accordingly.
Rats and rabbits so injured cannot walk straight. When
the canals of the internal ear of one side are diseased in
man giddiness and a tendency to fall in the attempt
to walk are consequences. The pair of liquid-holding
vesicles containing one or more solid particles suspended
within them, which are found in snails, mussels, and other
molluscs, are usually called “ internal ears ” or “ auditory

104

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

vesicles,” because they are affected by the vibrations of
sound. But it has been reasonably contended that
they must serve if not exclusively, yet also as organs of
the sense of balance — and hence in place of the name
“ otocysts ” or “ ear-vesicles ” they have been called
“ statocysts ” or “ balance vesicles.” The walls of these
sacs in the lower animals are supplied each by a large
nerve from the brain, the fine fibres of which end in
peculiar “ cells ” which line the vesicle. A few years ago
similar vesicles were discovered in the leaves of plants,
especially in those which climb and twist round the
stems of other plants for support. It appears that they
may serve as directive organs in the movements of these
plants, though such a notion involves the supposition
that the living protoplasm of plant tissues can act as the
nervous system does in animals and transmit “ im¬
pulses.” Mr. Darwin did not shrink from such a
supposition, and in his last work — that on the movement
of plants — he established the existence of such “ trans¬
mission ” in several cases.

By this brief review I have placed before the reader
an outline of what is meant by a “ sense.” It is always
dependent on the excitation of a demonstrable and
appropriate apparatus — a sense-organ — and through it
of connected nerve-fibres, which transmit “ impulses ”
to the brain. We have seen what are the agencies which
can be distinguished as definitely stimulating nerve-
fibres in this way, and that there are ten different kinds
of such agencies acting on ten differently constructed
appropriate sense-organs (some few of them not yet fully
investigated), in which the nerves terminate, or perhaps
we should rather say “ take origin.” In view of these
facts, the absurdity of talking about “ a sixth-sense ”
(there are already ten), or a “ spider-sense,” or a “ cat-

THE SENSES AND SENSE-ORGANS 105

sense,” becomes obvious. It is, of course, conceivable
and possible that a spider or a cat may act with some
unusual intensity in some people on one of the ten
“ senses ” which have been distinguished by investi¬
gators of the human nervous system. But we must
require experimental demonstration of the fact before
accepting assertions on the subject, whilst those who
invoke a new special “ sense ” to bolster up their un¬
tested beliefs in the stories of detection of concealed
spiders and cats must, it seems, be using the word
“ sense ” in a misleading and illegitimate manner.

So, too, it seems to me that there is a fundamental mis¬
understanding as to the nature and operation of the only
channels by which man is known to receive impressions,
and those highly complicated groups of impressions which
result in knowledge of the world around him — on the
part of those who are of the opinion that one human
brain can communicate, not merely signs, but detailed
information to another at a distance without operating
on the sense-organs of the recipient. I refer to the base¬
less assertions of the existence of what has been called
“ telepathy.”

CHAPTER XI

AN EYE AT THE BACK OF THE HEAD

IMAGINATIVE people have been heard to excuse
a failure to keep in view everything going on around
them — back and front, right and left — by the protest :
“ How could I possibly see it ? I haven’t got eyes at
the back of my head ! ” “ True, Madam (or Sir),” we

should reply ; “ yet the notion is not so outlandish as
you seem to suppose. Those graceful, swiftly evasive
little animals, the lizards, closely similar in all details of
structure to ourselves, have, besides a pair of eyes like
our own, also a single eye in the middle of the top of the
head ! ”

This third eye is, it is true, of small size, and was
only discovered a few years ago. But it is a true “ eye,”
an optical apparatus like a minute photographic camera
with lens, dark chamber and a sensitive nerve-plate
corresponding to the photographer’s sensitive plate, and
connected by a long, optic nerve with the brain. It is
only in the lizards, among living reptiles, that this third
eye is to-day existing, but in some of the ancient, ex¬
tinct reptiles it was of large size and great importance.
The common little green lizard of Jersey and South
Europe shows it very well, though it is larger in the large
tropical lizards known as “ Monitors,” and in the
curious Sphenodon or “ Tua-tara ” of New Zealand.

106

AN EYE AT THE BACK OF THE HEAD 107

Fig. 24 is a drawing of the upper surface of the head of
the green lizard, of twice the natural length and breadth.
It is covered by horny plate or “ scales ” arranged in a
definite pattern. The nostrils perforate a pair of these
“ scales.” That of the right side is marked n. in our
drawing. Farther back we come to the large paired

Fig. 24. — Upper surface of
the head of the Green
Lizard, Lacerta viridis,
magnified to twice the
natural length, n., right
nostril ; e., eyelid of the
large eye of the right
side; au., auditory canal ;
p.e., scale covering the
pineal, or “ third ” eye,
which occupies the parie¬
tal foramen.

Fig. 25.— The upper sur¬
face of the bony skull of
thej same Lizard, n.a.,
the right nasal aperture ;
or., the right orbit ; p.f.,
the parietal foramen, or
orifice, in which the
" third ” eye is seated.

eyes, which, seen from above, show only as two dark
slits edged by the eyelids. That of the right side is
marked e. Still farther back there is a pair of small
openings of which that on the right side is marked au.
They are the ear passages. In the middle line is a five¬
sided scale marked p.e., with a little translucent promi¬
nence at its centre. This is the special thing which
concerns us ; it is the covering scale of “ the third eye,”

108

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

and seems to be shaped so as to act as a window or look¬
out for that remarkable possession.

When the scales and soft parts are cleaned off the head
of the green lizard, the bony skull is displayed as drawn
in our Fig. 25. The cavities in the bone connected with
the outer nostrils are seen (n.a.) and the bony orbits (or.)
in which the large “ eyeballs ” or paired eyes are sup¬
ported and protected. In the middle line of the big
bone, called the “ parietal,” which is the roof of the
chamber containing the lizard’s brain, there is a small
round hole (J>.f .). This is the “ parietal foramen,” or
opening. It corresponds exactly in position with the
scale marked p.e. in Fig. 24. Filling this parietal
aperture, when the soft parts are still in place, lies a little
dark-coloured globe about as big as a small pin’s head.
This is the actual thing of which we are in search —
the third eye itself. The little ball-like, grey-coloured
homoeopathic globule has a stalk attached to it — its optic
nerve — which passes through the hole in the bone and
between the lobes of the enclosed brain to join the deeply
placed central part of that organ.

If we carefully expose the globule-like object of our
search in its place by cutting away the skin and soft parts
on one side, and examine it with a magnifying glass, it
presents the appearance shown in Fig. 26, with half of
the overlying scale in position (Fig. 26, cut.). The horny
cuticle (cut.) of the scale and the underlying layer of
epidermis ( ep .) are seen in section, whilst the “ eye ” itself
is uncut and supported on its nerve-stalk ( n.s .). The
surface of the ball of the little eye is seen to be beset with
black pigment threads excepting the part nearest the
scale, which is colourless and transparent. This is the
“ lens,” so lettered in our figure. By skilful methods

AN EYE AT THE BACK OF THE HEAD 109

thin sections can be cut right through the eyeball and
its stalk — for examination with high powers of the
microscope. Such a section is drawn in Fig. 27, and the
complete structure of the little “ third eye ” is revealed.
It is hollow, the central space being filled by clear liquid.
Its wall is built up of the microscopic units of structure
known as “ cells.” In front they are massed so as to
form the important firm and definitely shaped lens. It

lens

Fig. 26. — The " third ” eye,
or pineal eye, of the Green
Lizard, exposed by dissec¬
tion. cut., cuticle; ep.,
cellular epiderm ; lens, the
lens forming the top of the
eyeball ; n.s., the nerve

stalk, or optic nerve.

lens

Fig. 27. — The same as Fig.
26, but the eyeball and
its stalk now shown in
section. r., the retina
lining the eyeball. Other
letters as in Fig. 26. Note
the cell-structure of the
lens.

is a matter of significance that this lens is built up of
interlocking living “ cells,” each with its little central
sphere or “ nucleus,” and is not a structureless knob
of horny substar.ee or of dense jelly, as is the case with
the lens of the eyes of some lower animals (see next
chapter). The sides and back part of the wall of the
chamber or cavity of the lizard’s third eye is formed by
two sets of interlocking rod-like cells (Fig. 27, r.), one
set charged with black pigment, which thus give a dark,

110

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

black lining to the chamber — a feature universally
characteristic of true “ eyes ” — and the other set standing
between these and connected each with a nerve-filament
which can be traced with its fellows to the nerve-stalk
(n.s.) built up of these filaments and passing as a long cord
far down into the central part of the brain.

The little “ third ” eye we have thus examined is
often called “ the parietal eye,” because it is lodged in
an opening or “ foramen ” in the parietal bone — a bone
formed by the union of a pair of bones which roof over
the skull in ourselves and other vertebrate animals, such
as fish, reptiles, birds, and mammals. The parietal eye
is also often called “ the pineal eye,” because in ourselves
and most other vertebrate animals it has dwindled and
disappeared, leaving only a deep part of its stalk which
is connected with the brain and with a pea-like body,
called by old anatomists the “ pineal body.” The sig¬
nificance of the pineal body is unknown. It is not the
parietal eye in an altered condition, and it is not yet
possible to give any satisfactory account of it. The
philosopher Descartes held it to be the seat of the soul.
This part of the brain and the parietal eye itself are relics
of the past — structures which either persist and are in¬
herited from our remote ancestors in a changed and
puzzling condition, or else have ceased to appear — even
with changed shape and uses— in the present representa¬
tives of the vertebrate stock save in a very few excep¬
tional instances. The only other living creatures, besides
some lizards, in which the third or parietal or pineal
eye has been found are the very peculiar and remote
group of fish-like creatures known as lampreys and
hag-fish — and in them its structure is less developed
and its significance less obvious than in the lizards.
It seems that the little parietal eye of the lizards is only

AN EYE AT THE BACK OF THE HEAD 111

a last vestige or survival of what was once a large and
important third eye

Fig. 28. — Dorsal surface of the skull of an Ichthyosaurus, to show
P., the parietal orifice in which the pineal eye was lodged.
Fr., the broken edge of the snout. (From a specimen in the
Natural History Museum, reduced to one-fourth of the natural
size.)

In many kinds of lizards the parietal eye is present,
but in a withered, ineffective condition. Even in those
in which it retains the window-scale, the lens, and the
other details of structure as above described in the green

112

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

lizard, it has not been shown to be actually in use as an
organ of vision. More experiments to test this are needed,
and are not easy to carry out. Possibly it has in all
living lizards become so reduced in size as to be useless ;
but possibly it still is sensitive to light in a small way.
On the other hand, the skulls of some of the large, extinct
reptiles — but not those of crocodiles, Dinosaurs, or
tortoises — have a “ parietal foramen ” of an inch or more
in diameter, and the “ third eye,” which was lodged in
this orifice, must have been an important organ of sight.
The skull of the extinct porpoise-like reptile, the Ich¬
thyosaurus, has a large parietal foramen (Fig. 28) ; and
the skulls of the Dicynodonts, huge tusk-bearing reptiles
found in the pre-oolitic strata known as the Trias,
possess a parietal foramen as big round as a penny, its
bony edge raised up to form a sort of circular well-head.

It is not improbable that the well-grown parietal eye
of the great extinct reptilian ancestors of our modern
lizards was not only actually larger but more elaborately
constructed than the diminutive parietal eye which I have
described and pictured above.

CHAPTER XII

OTHER EYES

EYES as simple as the lizard’s parietal or third
eye — described in Chapter XI — are characteristic
of various kinds of lens

lower animals, but are
formed independently in
different groups by the modi¬
fication of parts essentially
different in origin in each
group. Thus in the scor¬
pion and some oth hard¬
skinned insects and insect¬
like creatures, we find a
very simple kind of eye
formed by a tubercle or
knob of the hard covering
of “ chitin ” or “ cuticle ” of
the head (Fig. 29). From
three to seven or more of
these little eyes are found
on each side of the scor¬
pion’s head. The living
“ cells ” of the epidermis,

Fig. 29. — Section through the
lateral eye of a Scorpion.
lens, the lens formed by
chitinous cuticle ; cut., the.,
cuticle or outer layer of the
skin ; ep., the cellular epider¬
mis which secretes or deposits
the horny cuticle and the lens ;
ret., the nerve-end cells of the
retina, which are part of the
epidermic layer of cells ; op.n.,
the optic nerve fibres. (From
the author’s original drawing.)

which are sunk so as to form a shallow cup, not only
secrete the nearly spherical lens of horny substance
(which for emphasis is shown as black in our drawing,

114

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

though it is really clear and transparent), but are actually
elongated beneath the lens and serve as the nerve-end
cells, or “ retinal ” cells, to which the nerve-filaments
of the optic nerve are attached. In life, a black pigment
is formed on the sides of each nerve-end cell, but has
been dissolved by weak nitric acid in the microscopical
section here drawn, since, if present, it would conceal the
cells from view. The important points about this simple
“ lateral eye ” of the scorpion’s head are, first, that the
lens is not like that of the lizard’s parietal eye, composed
of “ cells ’’ forming the front wall of an eye vesicle or
chamber, but is a button or knob of the outer horny, or
“ chitinous,” cuticle ; and, second, that it is supported by
— and is the secretion or product of — a single layer of
enlarged cells, which not only give rise to this horny
substance, but are, at the same time, the “ retinal ” or
nerve-end cells — “ the sensitive plate ” upon which the
light, concentrated by the lens, acts so as to produce
“ vision.” The “ compound ” eyes of insects and crus¬
taceans consist of many hundreds of closely packed little
eyes, each essentially like one of the scorpion’s simple
eyes, but further elaborated in the structure and grouping
of the soft living cells underlying each minute lens.

The paired eyes which both marine and terrestrial
snails carry on their heads are, again, of a different make.
The simplest — as, for instance, in the limpet — are open
cups sunk in the skin, and filled with a transparent,
structureless secretion, which is the lens (Fig. 30). But
in other snails the cup closes up in front and becomes a
little sphere enclosing the glass-like lens (Fig. 31). The
back wall and sides of the cup (even in those cases where
the cup is open) develop black pigment. Embedded in
this black pigment are nerve-end cells connected by the
optic nerve with the brain (see Figs. 30 and 31, pg.).

OTHER EYES

115

The cuttle-fishes are elaborated and more highly
developed snails adapted to a swimming life. Their
paired eyes are in appearance (colour and shape)
wonderfully like those of the true “ fishes ” and other
vertebrates, but are really unlike them in growth
and origin, and are actually elaborations of the

lens

Fig. 30. — Section
through the open
cup-like eye of
the Limpet, lens,
the viscid plug
of the eye “ cup "
acting as a lens ;
ep., the epider¬
mis ; pg., the
pigment layer of
the retina ; op.n.,
the optic nerve.

Fig. 31. — Section through
the closed spherical
eye of a Land-Snail.
ep., the epidermis from
which the optic cham¬
ber ( op.ch .) has become
separated as a closed
sphere ; lens, the
spherical lens not com¬
pletely filling the optic
chamber [op.ch.) ; pg.,
the pigment-layer of
the retina ; op.n., the
optic nerve.

simpler eye of the snails. By up-growths a con
tractile, perforated screen of metallic lustre, like the iris
and “ pupil ” of the vertebrate’s paired eye, is formed in
the cuttle-fish in front of the closed cup containing the
lens (see Fig. 32 and explanation) ; and a further and later
transparent up-growth — the “ cornea ” — in front of this
* * iris ’ ’ forms an ‘ ‘ anterior chamber ’ ’ to the eye, with clear,

116

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

transparent walls, a.ch. The lens, which becomes firm
and separate from the more fluid contents of the original

“ eye-chamber,” is now hing
up, as it were, between that
chamber (which is now the
posterior chamber) and the
newly formed anterior cham¬
ber. A muscle — like in posi¬
tion to the “ ciliary ” muscle
of the vertebrate’s paired eye
— is attached all round to the
edge of the spherical lens (cil.
in Fig. 32), and serves to move
it a little so as to focus the

Fig. 32. — Diagram of a sec¬
tion through a highly-
developed eye representing
that either of a Vertebrate
or of a Cephalopod Cuttle-
Fish. It shows anterior
[a.ch.) and posterior cham¬
bers ( op.ch .), . an iris or
adjustable curtain in front
of the lens (marked iris),
a “ciliary” muscle (cil.)
which corrects the focus of

picture made by the lens on
the back wall of the posterior
chamber, where is spread the
much-elaborated sensitive plate
of pigment and nerve-end cells
called the “ retina.” A pair
of movable eyelids grow up
in the cuttle-fish, externally
from the sides of the trans-

the lens, and a strongly parent wall of the anterior

developed black pigment chamber — the cornea (el. in
lining, the “ choroid ” coat p- \
of the eyeball ( ch .) backing 3 )•

the retina (ret.) ; also the'

cornea (cor.) or transparent As though expressly to
part of the waH of the eye- show us the real nature of the
ball; scl., the tough opaque - - i , .

coat of the eyeball ; and cuttle-fish S eye, we find in
el., the eyelids. the Pearly Nautilus— a living

though very anciently evolved
relative of the cuttle-fishes — a pair of eyes each as large
as a marrowfat pea, but of absolutely primitive con¬
struction. Each stands up like a kettledrum in shape,

OTHER EYES

117

opaque and dull-coloured (Fig. 33).
of the flat surface of the drum is a
access to its black-lined cavity.

The sea-water has free access
by this little hole to the cavity,
and so have the rays of light
which, entering here, form a
picture on the black, sensitive,
retina-lined wall of the little
kettledrum. There is no
“ lens ” or other accessory
structure. Its simple structure
is shown by a section through it
(Fig. 33). It is what is called
a “ pin-hole camera,” and the
picture is produced within it
in virtue of the same optical
laws as were made use of in
the “ camera obscura ” shown

But in the centre
minute hole giving

ret.

Fig. 33. — Eye of the Pearly
Nautilus.

in bygone times at fairs and
seaside piers and pleasure-
gardens. I say “ were,” for
they seem to have gone out
of fashion. I have never had
the chance of coming across
this popular “ show,” though
I lately read a novel in which
the conversion of a cellar into
a “ camera obscura ” by the
accidental opening of a small
hole in its roof is made the
means whereby an unfortu-

A, the eyeball standing
up like a kettledrum —
seen from the surface ;
or., the minute pin-hole
aperture by which the
light enters the eyeball.

B, diagram of a section
through the same ; or.,
the pin-hole aperture, or
orifice; op.ch., the optic
chamber lined with vibrat¬
ing hairs [cilia) ; ret.,
the retina continuous
with the epidermis of the
outer surface ; pg., the
layer of pigment in the
retina; op.n., the optic
nerve fibres converging
to form the optic nerve.

nate artist finds himself an unwilling witness of a
murder going on, on the roof overhead — the whole scene
being projected as a picture on to the wall of the cellar.

CHAPTER XIII

THE PAIRED EYES OF MAN

WE now come to the paired eyes of vertebrates,
which, as just pointed out, have much the same
elaboration of details and parts as we find in the
cuttle-fish, and are equally well represented in a diagram¬
matic way by the section drawn in Fig. 32. We have the
lens slung between an anterior and posterior chamber ;
a transparent “ cornea ” forming the front wall of the
anterior chamber ; the lens brought to focus by the action
of a special “ ciliary ” muscle, and overhung in front by
a circular muscle — the iris — which can expand or contract
its central opening, the pupil. Moreover, eyelids are
very generally added externally as additional screens.
Yet the origin and nature of the parts of the vertebrate
paired eye are very different from those of the similar
parts in the cuttle-fish. The primary eye-chamber, or
eyeball, of the vertebrate is a vesicle or hollow out¬
growth of the wall of the hollow, tube-like primitive brain
(see Fig. 34), and not a shallow, cup-like up-growth of the
outer skin, as is that of the cuttle-fish (see Fig. 35). It
is, strictly, a sac-like side-chamber of the brain. The
lens of the vertebrate paired eye is not formed by the
condensation of the viscid contents of the primary optic
chamber, as in cuttle-fishes, but is a distinct cellular
growth made up of many elongated cells which arises
from the cell-layer of the outer skin or epidermis (Fig. 34,

THE PAIRED EYES OF MAN

119

A and B). It differs thus from all eyes which have a
structureless lens formed by a surface deposit or secretion.
Some of the bivalve molluscs (the Scallop or Pecten and
others) have eyes provided with a multicellular lens like
that of the paired eye of Vertebrates and of the pineal

Fig. 34. — Diagrams of the actual development of one of
the paired eyes of a Vertebrate.

A, earlier stage, showing the lens as a separate growth

of the cells of the epidermis, and the optic vesicle
( opt.ves .) as a hollow outgrowth of the wall of the
brain cavity.

B, later stage, showing the lens now detached from the

epidermis, and sinking into the cup formed by an
in-pushing of the optic vesicle. Letters as follows :
cut., the cuticle ; ep., the cellular epidermis ; lens,
the cellular lens ; opt.ves., the primitive optic vesicle,
or outgrowth of the hollow brain. It becomes
“ invaginate ” or cupped, and the cup becomes the
" optic chamber ” of Fig. 32, and is filled with a jelly-
like growth (1 lit.), the vitreous humour. The double
wall of the cup — so formed — becomes the retina
(ret. of Fig. 32).

or third eye. Yet further, the primitive optic chamber
of the vertebrate’s paired eye differs greatly from that
of most (if not all) other eyes in the fact that in the
course of its growth in the embryo it very soon ceases
to be a vesicle or chamber. The front half becomes
pushed into the back half, so that the chamber becomes
a double-walled sac of hemispherical shape (Fig. 34, B).

120

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

The formation of this new hemispherical chamber is
accompanied by the separation of the lens from the skin,
and by its taking up a position in the mouth of the
hemispherical chamber. The double wall of the new
chamber now loses all trace of the original cavity be¬
tween its two layers, and
the cells of which it con¬
sists become the elaborate
“ retina ” of the eye, whilst
the stalk of the chamber
becomes the optic nerve.
The hard coat of the eye¬
ball, its dark lining or
choroid, the anterior cham¬
ber, cornea, iris, and ciliary
or focusing muscle, and the
jelly (“ vitreous humour ”)
of the posterior chamber
now form around the lens

Fig. 35.— Development of the by growth into the double-

eye of a Cuttle-Fish. A, n 1 • ^ ,

J , . ... , ’ walled mvagmated optic

earnest nng-like up-growth. _ ° r

AS, section through the same, vesicle. It is obvious that
B, later stage ; the ring there is a similar modelling
closing in forming a chamber of the tg cf the yerte_
with central orifice (as m .

Nautilus) and finally closing brate paired eye and of

up. BS, section of the same ; those of the cuttle-fish’s
or, orifice. (From the original paired eye, but not a deep-
description by E. R. L.) , , ,. . , r

r ' seated, genetic identity of

the parts — lens, iris, cavities — compared. They are
“ homoplastic ” (that is, of identical modelling) but
not “homogenetic” (that is, not of identical origin or
ancestry).

This brief consideration of other eyes — necessarily
very rapid and sketchy— has been made in order that we

THE PAIRED EYES OF MAN

121

may arrive at some further appreciation of the “ parietal ”
or “ pineal ” or “ third ” eye of the lizard. Does it
conform in essentials to the pattern of the vertebrate
paired eyes ? Does it agree more closely with the
simple eyes of snails ? Or with that of the scorpion ?

The fact is that the lizard’s parietal, or third, eye differs
in one or other important point from each of those we
have considered. It is small and dwindled, and probably
has lost some accessory parts which were present in the
big parietal eye of extinct reptiles. It agrees with the
fully formed snail’s eye and the vertebrate paired eye
in being a closed chamber — an eyeball — with an optic
nerve attached to it. Like the vertebrate’s paired eye, it
is a sac-like outgrowth of the hollow brain, but it does
not become tucked into itself or “ invaginate.” It remains
as the single chamber of the eye. The lens is formed by
elongate interlaced cells, as is that of the vertebrate
paired eye. It is a cell-structured lens, not a structureless
secretion like that formed in the chamber of the snail’s
eye and of the cuttle-fish’s eye, nor like the surface knob
of horny substance of the scorpion’s eye. Nevertheless,
the lens of the lizard’s parietal eye differs also greatly
from that of the vertebrate’s paired eye. For, as shown
in our drawing of a section through it (Fig. 27), it is
merely a transparent thickening of the cellular growth
which forms the front wall of the simple eye-chamber or
eyeball itself. It is not a separately formed cellular
growth of the epidermis which moves into position from
the outside, as is the lens of the vertebrate paired eye
(Fig. 34). That makes a great difference between them.
In fact, the cell-structure of the lens is the only important
point in which they really agree, whilst differing from the
eyes of the snail, the cuttle-fish, and the scorpion. So
we have to regard the little parietal eye as quite apart in

122

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

the more profound and significant origin of its structural
elements. Curiously enough, little eyes occur on the
fringe of the soft “ mantle ” of the scallops and allied
bivalve mussel-like molluscs, which are modified ten¬
tacles, and, whilst fairly simple in structure, have a lens
which, like that of both the parietal and paired eyes of
vertebrates, is not a structureless secretion, but shows
“ cell-structure ” — that is to say, consists of a compacted
growth of living cell units, as does the lens of the verte¬
brate’s eyes. The eyes in the back of some marine slugs,
the rows of beautiful minute eyes discovered by Moseley
in the series of shells situated on the back of the curious
little chitons of the seashore, the eyes of starfishes,
of sea-urchins, and of jelly-fish, each call for special
description in a survey of the various kinds of eye-
structure presented by animals. We may return to them
on some future occasion. Enough has been here said of
other eyes to enable the reader to appreciate the character
and importance of the vertebrate’s third eye.

CHAPTER XIV

WASPS

MOST people dislike wasps because, owing to
blundering on their own part or that of a wasp,
they have at some time or other experienced the
acute pain caused by the wasp’s sting. But those who
have an eye for beauty recognize the grace, agility, and
concentrated power of the brilliant little creature with
its black-and-yellow livery and surprisingly tight-drawn
waist. We must also score in its favour that it is cleanly
and has no nasty smell as have some stingless insects,
protecting them from aggression in the same way as its
terrible stink-gland protects the skunk ; also that it will
let you alone if you do not needlessly worry it. The
worst that can be said of the wasp is that it nibbles and
so injures ripe fruit which we wish to keep for ourselves,
and that if you let one crawl up under your sleeve or
trouser, or between your neck and collar, it resents your
carelessness in permitting it to wander into such confined
quarters, and irritably and recklessly stabs your soft
warm flesh with its poisoned tail-sting.

Men and boys as a rule owe their painful experience
of wasp’s stings to their own clumsy attempts to destroy
a wasps’ nest, and the consequent legitimate defence and
retaliation of the outraged waspsi We used, when I was
a boy, to stuff a quantity of gunpowder or a couple of

“ squibs ” into the mouth of the subterranean chamber

123

124

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

in which the wasps had built their nest, and then set
fire to a fuse. After the explosion, and when most of the
wasps within the subterranean cave were either dead or
stupefied, we used recklessly to dig out the “ comb ”
and destroy with our spades the grubs and rare survivors.
Usually these destructive attacks were made after sunset,
when all the wasps had retired for the night ; and some of
us were sure to be stung in the legs by half-stupefied
victims crawling over the grass and seeking refuge
between their assailant’s leg and trouser. On one occa¬
sion we thus destroyed a nest during broad daylight in
a river’s bank, and were attacked by hundreds of the
furious inhabitants who had not been within the nest,
but returned to it when we were at work. They
“ charged ” us like cavalry, and pursued us for a quarter
of a mile, giving us much effective punishment with their
stings ; and no doubt we deserved it, though we thought
we were doing public service ! A better method than
that of gunpowder has become usual of late years. Now-
a-days when night has fallen and the nest is full, you place
an ounce or so of cyanide of potassium well into the
mouth of the little cave in which the wasps have built
their nest, squirt on to it with a garden syringe a pint
or so of water, close the hole tightly with a turf or ball
of clay, and leave it. The poisonous fumes of the wet
cyanide pervade the nest and kill all — young and old —
within. Leave it alone afterwards ! A forgetful wasp
destroyer omitted to inject the necessary water, and when
next day in the presence of friends he triumphantly
removed the closing turf from the mouth of the sepulchre,
expecting to find all dead and silent within, he was
attacked by the entire community who issued in swarms
uninjured from the nest.

Those who are “ worried ” by wasps should avoid

WASPS

125

them and try to draw them away from sitting-rooms by
placing some attractive sweet stuff outside at a distance
whilst covering all such edibles in the house or on the
tea-table by a light cloth. It is useless to kill a few in¬
truders, since as many as 30,000 are hatched out in a
wasp’s nest in the season. A really effective thing is to
kill the few “ queens,” which make their appearance early
in the spring. Each of these is the possible progenitor
of several thousand in the warmer months.

Wasps eat not only sugar and fruits, but are car¬
nivorous. They catch and carry off as food many in¬
jurious flies, caterpillars, and other insects ; they frequent
butchers’ shops not only to eat the meat, but also the
blowflies which visit those establishments. They are
thus largely “ beneficial.” Besides the damage which
they do to fruit, some of them destroy young shoots and
woody parts of trees in order, by munching the fibre,
to make the paper-like paste of which their nests and
brood-cells are constructed. This is especially the habit
of that large kind of wasp — happily not very common —
known as the hornet. The hornet has more than six
times the bulk of the common wasp, and is alarming at
close quarters on account of its loud buzz and rapid
flight. I do not know of any account of the sting of
a hornet showing it to be more serious than that
of the common wasp, but a naturalist cannot be
blamed for unwillingness to settle this point by ex¬
periment

Besides the common wasp and the hornet there are
five other kinds or species of wasp met with in Britain,
and some hundreds of foreign kinds. The British kinds
include the German wasp (a digging wasp or trench
maker), the red wasp, and the tree wasps, which build

126

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

their turnip-shaped paper nests exposed to view on the
branches of trees. The hornet builds its papier-mache
nest in hollow trees and outhouses.

The most interesting facts which the naturalist has to
tell about wasps relate to their yellow and black colouring,
to their stings, and to their social habits or “ com¬
munities.” The yellow and black colour bands of a
wasp’s body are what are called “ warning colours.”
They are avoided by birds, lizards, and other animals,
since these colours accompany the poisonous sting. The
brilliant yellow-and-black “ salamander ” (a sort of newt
common on the Continent, but not native here) secretes a
deadly crystalline poison in its skin (as also does the
common toad), and no animal which has taken one
into its mouth and suffered accordingly will tackle the
yellow-and-black gentry again. The salamander slowly
and confidently walks abroad in his yellow-and-black
livery, safe from attack. Some caterpillars, e.g. that
of the cinnabar moth, as well as the common wasp,
sport the poison colours — yellow and black — in alternate
bands, and are consequently “ let alone ” by small
carnivorous animals, who have learnt to fear them.
Similarly the silver-grey back of the poison-squirting
skunk is known to all his neighbours, even to horses and
men, and they get out of his way. He slowly paces along
a road without fear, and ready to explode with acrid
offence. Insects of quite distinct orders, such as the two¬
winged hover-flies and the hornet-fly, and one of the
clear-wing moths, though themselves innocuous, are
protected from the attacks of other insects and larger
animals by the close resemblance to the wasp given to
them by the black and yellow bands of colour on their
bodies. They are exhibited in a special case in the
Natural History Museum.

WASPS

127

The sting of the wasp, like that of the bee and the
ant, and other allied insects, has been derived in the long
course of ages from a sharp piercing instrument present
in the females of the more primitive members of this
class of insects (the Hymenoptera) for use as a “ borer ”
to make holes in the shoots of plants (the saw-flies and
gall-flies), or in the bodies of caterpillars (the ichneumon
flies), wherein to lay their eggs. The young are hatched
from the eggs thus introduced into a plant-shoot or an
animal, and feed upon it. What was an apparatus for
providing for the safety and nutrition of the young, has
in the stinging kinds lost that application, and by the
addition to it of a poison gland, has become a powerful
weapon of offence and defence. But it is still the
peculiar possession of the females. The poison gland of
the wasps, bees, and ants secretes both a narcotic or
paralysing poison and formic acid. It is the formic
acid which causes the pain we experience when stung.
The poison alone, though it can paralyse a small insect,
has in the quantities present neither painful nor toxic
action upon man. It is a curious fact that the stinging
hairs of the common nettle also emit both formic acid and
a nerve-poison. Ammonia in not too strong solution is
the best antidote to the acid sting of wasp or bee. A
really dangerous result may be caused by the swelling of
the tongue when stung by a wasp blundering into the
open mouth of man, or woman, or child. A wineglass¬
ful of glycerine held in the mouth gives immediate relief
Some kinds of ants have lost the sharp piercing sting
whilst retaining the poison gland, and there are in
South America certain kinds of “ stingless ” bees, in
which the parts of the sting are reduced and useless for
piercing.

Wasps and bees are closely related. Our common

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GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

wasp and the honey-bee, and many other kinds of both
wasps and bees, form communities of which a “ queen,”
or fertile female, is the foundress, and is assisted in the
construction of the comb or aggregation of “ cells ” in
which she lays her eggs by infertile or aborted females —
the “ workers.” In the common wasp, as in the honey¬
bee, the workers relieve the queen of all labour, not only
building the comb, but collecting and storing food for
the nourishment of the young which are hatched as grubs
from the eggs laid by the queen in separate cells. They
emerge from their cells as “ workers ” or “ queens ”
according to the food supplied to them by the adult
workers of the community, or as “ drones ” (males) if the
egg is not fertilized by the sperm received into her sperm-
sac by the queen from a drone in a preceding season.
Unlike that of the hive bees, the wasp’s community is
annual, existing for one summer only. All of its members
die in the autumn, excepting a few queens (fully-formed
females), which have been fertilized in the early autumn
by the drones whilst flying high in the air. These creep
into crevices under stones or trees and hibernate until
the warmth of spring revives them. Each then sets to
work independently to find some burrow or hole in the
ground in which to build a nest. It is made of wood-
pulp chewed by her, and consists at first of three — only
three — shallow cup-like cells. In each of these an egg is
laid. They hatch out as grubs and are fed by their
mother on munched insects and honey, and develop into
“ workers,” who build more cells, and provide more food
for the new grubs, as does the queen also. She is now,
however, mainly occupied in laying an egg in each cell as
soon as it is completed. Thus the family community
grows, and as the summer comes on the cells are counted
in hundreds and thousands. Each may be used three
times in the season, the queen providing an egg for each

WASPS

129

empty cell. The egg in less than three weeks becomes a
full-grown wTasp— a hard-working member of the frater¬
nity — numbering from 10,000 to 20,000 — all children of
one parent ! The “ communities ” of bees and ants have
a history and nature similar to that just sketched — varying
in several important details. It seems at first sight un¬
likely that this system of family communities, consisting
of queen, workers, and drones, each playing their own
peculiar part with wonderful precision and exactness,
can have arisen more than once in the course of develop¬
ment and the origin of new “ species ” by the selection
of favoured races in the struggle for existence. It would
at first sight seem probable that wasps, bees, and ants
had inherited this highly organized system from one
common original stock, which was, to begin with, of
solitary habits (that is to say, united in isolated pairs to
build each its own nest and rear its own young — as most
insects and other animals do), and gradually acquired the
communal habit and the limitation of egg-laying and
other special activities as the task of special kinds or
“ castes ” of the populous family. But the fact that
there are well-known “ solitary ” species of wasps and of
bees, and even of ants, and also in each of these groups
— species or kinds which have only arrived at intermediate
steps (leading towards the development of the large and
completely organized communities seen in the common
wasp, the honey-bee, and many species of ants), favours
the conclusion that the groups known as wasps, bees, and
ants have each independently given rise to community¬
forming or “ social ” species. This view is confirmed by
the fact that insects of a widely separate order — the
termites, of tropical and sub-tropical regions (confusingly
called white “ ants,” for they are not ants) — also have
developed an elaborate social system of the same kind,
their communities consisting of millions of individuals of
9

130

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

males, queens, and workers, and often forming nests as
big as a motor-bus.

The insects we have named wasps, bees, ants, and
termites are the only insects which form such com¬
munities. Not only that, they are the only animals
of any kind which form such communities. The re¬
semblances to and wide differences from human
societies presented by these insect communities
form a subject of great philosophical and political
significance.

CHAPTER XV

AN UNWARRANTED FANCY

SOME years ago I wrote in the “ Daily Telegraph ’
in reference to the notion entertained by some
people that human beings can communicate with
one another by a mysterious process which they cal
“ telepathy ” as follows : “ The hypothesis that any

animal, including man, is affected ‘ sensorially ’ through
any channel excepting the known sense-organs is one of
the truth of which no proof has ever been given in any
case. No such proof has been given in the supposed
instances of communication between human beings at
a distance from one another.” This statement attracted
the attention of Mr. William Archer, who did not
agree with me, and wrote a remarkable article in the
“ Daily News ” on the subject. Mr. Archer is a versatile
writer, and it is interesting to know how the pretensions
to and beliefs in “ thought-transference ” are judged by
one who has the exceptional opportunities which he has,
for addressing the public on a matter of serious concern.
Moreover, there is need for considering the matter again
to-day — since those who believe in “ telepathy ” are still
numerous, although no attempts to demonstrate its
existence by decisive evidence have been successful.
The existence of the belief in “ telepathy ” is in fact
explained — as is the belief in ghosts, spirit-rapping, and
other such fancies — by common and well-known causes.

131

132

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

The chief is ignorance of the necessity for carefully
testing human testimony or evidence before accepting
it. This, accompanied by coincidence, faulty observa¬
tion and memory, victimization by fraud, mental
disease resulting in illusion and hallucination, accounts
for the persistence of these irrational and injurious
fancies.

It is, of course, understood that Mr. Archer (as is
obvious from his article) has no special knowledge of
past and present beliefs in thought-reading, clairvoyance,
and second sight referred to as supposed “ communica¬
tions of mind with mind otherwise than by means of
the organs of sense.” Nor does he come to the matter
in hand as an expert in psychology, nor as a physiologist,
nor as having the experience of a medical man. It is
therefore not possible to discuss his statements and
opinions on this matter as having any special weight.
At the same time, they seem to me quite interesting, as
showing the recklessness with which some people jump
to conclusions on obscure and difficult matters requiring
investigation, the inaccuracy with which they quote the
statements of those who oppose their prejudices, and the
effrontery with which they “ bluff ” by boldly asserting
that those who do not agree with them are “ behind the
times.” The assertion made by Mr. Archer that the
opponents of credulity are “ behind the times ” is true
only in so far as it is the fact that the times are exceptional
on account of the present willingness of an uneducated
public to accept as true the absurdities dished up for it by
a certain class of writers, and in the loss of a sense of
public duty and dignity, which until recently restrained
the employers of such writers from seeking commercial
success by disseminating injurious rubbish in magazines
and newspapers.

AN UNWARRANTED FANCY

133

We may take Mr. Archer as a sample of the credulous
person who, in virtue of his want of method and ex¬
perience, is imposed upon by pretensions to “ occult ”
powers. Such persons are still numerous, though less so
than formerly. Mr. Archer’s credulity is less injurious
to the public interest than the hardihood with which —
though in no way qualified to do so — he declares, without
offering a tittle of evidence in support of his statement,
that the opinion of those qualified to judge on these
matters has greatly changed since 1870 (why 1870 ?)
and that “ the man who, in these days, can doubt the
transference of ideas from mind to mind, without any
intervention of the recognized sense-organs, shows a
heroic resolve to admit no evidence of a later date than
1870.” This is a complete misconception.

As a matter of fact, the further we go back in history
the more general do we find the belief in such fancies as
thought-transference and the accompanying superstitions
as to apparitions, ghosts, and so-called “ spiritualism,”
and the less do we find to be the knowledge of the
facts as to the working of the human mind and as to
the various physical phenomena by misunderstanding of
which mankind has been led into erroneous and injurious
beliefs. The increase of knowledge and the destruction
of the ignorance and misconception which has bolstered
up superstition and the fanciful notions passed on to us
from our primitive ancestors, have not ceased, as Mr.
Archer unwarrantably asserts, but have largely progressed
during the last fifty years. We know much more of the
working of the human and animal “ mind ” (the science
called “ psychology,” not to be confused with sham
science put forward under the same name) than we did in
1870, and more of the history and explanation of human
fanciful beliefs and superstitions. The repeated attempts

134

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

of the credulous folk and their leaders — often corrupt
impostors — to spread their beliefs have been met (by
myself and others), and their false pretensions exposed,
again and again — whenever, in fact, the credulous ones
have submitted any of the marvels in which they believe
to the test of decisive scientific experiment. The fact is
that when Mr. Archer talks of the “ evidence ” since
1870 being in favour of “ occultism,” he chooses to call
mere “ testimony ” or “ assertion ” by that name, whether
it is false evidence or true evidence. He does not mean
“ evidence ” which has been strictly tested by approved
methods and declared by capable impartial judges to be
entitled to belief.

Let us now take the example of what Mr. Archer
considers to be evidence which (to use his own words)
“ proves ” (that is Mr. Archer’s word) “ that there are
means of communication between mind and mind, un¬
recognized and unaccounted for by orthodox science.”
He tells us of an exhibition of supposed powers of thought-
transference given by a man and his daughter, at which
he was present. The father, having left the room, the
daughter, in a whisper, mentions to those persons in
the room some real or imaginary scene she has called
to mind, which he, returning, deciphers usually with
scarcely a moment’s pause. I give only one example of
three narrated by Mr. Archer. The father having left
the room, the daughter says she is thinking of “ Miss
Wilkins at the Winchester and Eton match, and grand¬
father dropping the cigar-end on her umbrella.” The
father, on returning to the room, says : “I feel as if this
was still about Henry Wilkins, whom I have been talking
about — and I have a feeling of grandfather. It is
grotesque — grandfather dropping hot cigar-ash on an
umbrella in the open air. Oh yes ! at the match at

AN UNWARRANTED FANCY

135

Winchester.” The other two cases are similar. It is
on such “ evidence ” as this that Mr. William Archer
asks people to believe that a thing, in any case, so un¬
usual and so improbable as the transference of thoughts
from mind to mind without the intermediary of one of the
organs of sense actually takes place. It seems a mere
waste of time after this to say anything more about the
notions and assertions of Mr. Archer. Apparently, no
precaution was taken by him to prevent lip-reading, none
to prevent previous agreement between father and
daughter as to the subjects to be guessed, and yet Mr.
Archer says he believes, and asks us to believe, that the
trick is done by thought-transference, without the use of
sense-organs, and is a “ proof ” of its existence.

Let us for a moment realize the position. The only
fact before us is that this relation is made in a daily paper
over the signature “ William Archer.” What are the
possible explanations of that fact ? I will take them in
haphazard order. They are : (i) that the whole thing is
imaginary, invented by a writer whose name is not
William Archer ; (2) that William Archer did write the
story and invented it to amuse his readers ; (3) that he
believes it to be true in all its details, but was grossly
deceived by the father and daughter ; (4) that Mr. Archer
is mad, and honestly believes his story, which, however, is
either wholly imaginary or is so in important details ;
(5) that either the father or the daughter is insane, and is
consequently allowed to carry on a deception which Mr.
Archer failed to detect ; (6) that the story is quite true,
and that thoughts can be transferred from brain to brain
without the intermediary of any of the organs of sense.

Of these possible explanations of the fact before us,
namely, the story printed in the “ Daily News ” over Mr.

136

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

Archer’s name, it must, most distinctly, be stated that the
most improbable is the last. No one claiming to be
considered a reasonable being can possibly accept con¬
clusion No. 6 until it has been demonstrated that each of
the other five suggested explanations must be excluded.
Any one of them is more probable — that is to say, is more
in accordance with recorded human experience — than the
last. It would be quite easy to test these hypothetical
explanations, and until this is carried out by trustworthy
and careful observers I recommend my readers to dismiss
the whole childish history from their minds.

It is, of course, useless for one who has such loose
ideas as to the value of “ evidence ” and the nature of
“ proof” as Mr. Archer betrays in the narrative of what
he calls his “ researches in telepathy,” to talk about
the evidence existing before 1870, and that which has
accumulated since that date. Like many other people,
Mr. Archer has never learnt how to test “ evidence ” and
what constitutes “ proof ” and “ demonstration.” I
must also point out that Mr. Archer makes (as many
people do) a confusion between what is possible and what
is proved. He seems to think that wrhat he conceives as
possible is already made probable or is even “ proved.”
And on the other hand, by a similar process of con¬
fusion, he makes a baseless charge against me. He writes :
“ Sir Ray Lankester simply denies that any communica¬
tion can occur between mind and mind, except through
one or other of the five known avenues of sense.” This
is a piece of carelessness on Mr. Archer’s part. I do
nothing of the kind. I make a point of avoiding dog¬
matic statements as to what “ can ” or “ cannot ” be.
I am concerned with “ that which is.” The statement
of mine which Mr. Archer has perverted is that quoted at
the beginning of this chapter, in which I do not say that

AN UNWARRANTED FANCY

137

no such communication “ can ” occur between mind
and mind, but that “no proof” of its occurrence has
ever been given in any case. That is a totally different
thing. It is no prophecy, but a simple statement of fact,
which can be met by exhibiting the proof demanded —
the experimental proof — at any moment before a com¬
petent jury of scientific experts. Mr. Archer apparently
does not appreciate the difference between my statement
and his version of it. He is content to offer — to a con¬
fiding public — a worthless experiment — worthless be¬
cause carelessly and ignorantly made — as a “ proof” of
the existence of communication between mind and mind,
by a channel other than that afforded by the known
organs of sense. And in an equally reckless spirit he
misrepresents the words of one who rejects his un¬
warranted suppositions.

It is necessary to remind those who continue to
assert that “telepathy” is a frequent occurrence and
ask us to prove that it is not — or else to admit that it
is — that their method is universally condemned. It is
for them to bring conclusive evidence demonstrating the
truth of their contention. This they have not done, but
instead challenge their opponents to prove that they are
wrong. This is an old trick which still deceives the
unwary — but has long ago been recognized as the
resort of those who are unable to establish an assertion
by trustworthy evidence.

CHAPTER XVI

SPIDER-SENSE AND CAT-SENSE

THERE is at the present day a more general dis¬
position than was the case thirty or forty years
ago to dabble in “ occultism ” — to seriously
relate and discuss stories and theories as to ghosts,
divination, second sight, and mysterious inherited
memories of long-past ages. This change of attitude
is not accounted for by any discoveries of a scientific
nature tending to give support to popular superstitions
or to so-called “ occultism.” The fact is that there is a
distinct lowering in the standard of veracity and sound
common sense which not long ago characterized the best
English journalism. Newspapers, formerly written for
serious men, now not unfrequently cater for those who
desire tit-bits of scandal, and also for lovers of pseudo¬
scientific mysteries and medical quackery decked out
with sham learning and airs of profundity.

Among the mysteries thus offered to the contempla¬
tion of the public is one which has been dubbed the
“ spider-sense.” It is related that there are persons
who not only have an extreme and unaccountable dread
and dislike of spiders, but that some of them are brought
into a strange state of nervous agitation by the proximity
of a spider, and may even faint in consequence. Not
only is this extreme nervous disturbance reported, but it

SPIDER-SENSE AND CAT-SENSE

139

is further stated that such individuals are thus affected
by the presence of a spider in the same room with them,
even when it is not seen by the sufferer nor its presence
suspected by others. The susceptible individuals have
insisted on a search being made for the unseen spider,
and it is stated by witnesses present on such occasions
that after hunting about in corners and among shelves
the offending spider has been discovered and ejected,
whereupon the agitated individual (a la ly in one case)
has recovered serenity. On this basis we are seriously,
and with an air of exceptional learning, asked to admit
the existence of a peculiar sense — not that of sight, of
hearing, of smell, of taste, or of the various kinds
grouped as “touch” (enumerated in Chapter X). This
peculiar “ sense ” is assumed to be possessed by some
individuals and not by others, and to enable those
individuals to recognize the presence of a spider when
other persons cannot do so. It is proposed to call this
the “ spider-sense,” and by the more elaborately phan-
tastic of these wonder-mongers the manifestation is
compared to recorded cases in which a cat takes the
place of the spider, and we are gravely assured that there
is a “ cat-sense ” which is similar to but, of course, not
identical with, the “ spider-sense.” Both “ spider-
sense ” and “ cat-sense ” are, it seems probable, a variety
of non-sense 1

We have in the narratives just referred to, a state¬
ment of what is undoubtedly correct observation of fact,
to which is added an altogether gratuitous and fanciful
assumption, which it is declared is a necessary, or at any
rate a very probable, “ explanation ” of the facts. The
facts, which are perfectly well known, are that individuals
— men as well as women — are not uncommonly met with
who have curiously intense fear of, or dislike for, certain

140

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

animals or certain things, the dislike causing so great
a disturbance of the nervous system that the affected
individual will violently seek to escape from the presence
of the horror-causing animal or thing, and may scream
and exhibit other signs of distress, or may faint. The
mere sight of blood has this effect on some people ; they
faint — that is to say, the nervous disturbance is such as to
cause an arrest of the contractions of the heart and the
supply of blood to the brain. Even the word “ blood ”
has that effect upon some people, whilst medical men find
that many persons when lightly scratched on the arm in
“ vaccination,” faint if the merest trace of blood appears.
The sight or touch of a snake, even of a harmless kind,
produces excessive and uncontrollable terror in some
men and women, and also in some monkeys. A curious
effect of a “ shocking ” sight is one to which I was myself
subject in youth. If I saw anyone with red, inflamed
eyes and everted eyelids (beggars used to exhibit them¬
selves in that condition in the streets of London), my own
eyes at once became painful and suffused with liquid.
Some people are thrown into an unreasoning state of
terror (as most of us have had occasion to observe) when
led into a subterranean passage or dungeon, and not
infrequently faint in consequence. Others exhibit a
morbid horror of wide, open spaces, whilst proximity
to the edge of a precipice produces in some persons
excessive terror and physical collapse. A number of
such individual peculiarities could be mentioned. They
have been studied, and their nature and origin more or
less satisfactorily explained by medical men. They are
individual and unhealthily exaggerated reactions of mental
impressions upon the activity of various organs of the
body by means of the nerves which supply those organs.

The special and exaggerated discomfort or even

SPIDER-SENSE AND CAT-SENSE

141

terror which some common animals produce in certain
persons belongs to this class of individual peculiarities of
the nervous apparatus. Women very usually in this
part of the world are thrown into a state of nervous
terror by the presence in a room of an uncaged mouse.
Apparently this is due not to any instinctive dislike on
the part of women to a mouse, but to a fear cultivated by
stories told by them to one another from early childhood
of the possibility of a mouse, when alarmed and running
about here and there in order to escape danger, with a
rapidity rendering it invisible, suddenly seeking shelter
in their skirts. The imagination has been cultivated in
regard to this possibility to such a degree that a mouse
has become a bogy. Less commonly a bat is an object
of special terror on account of its occasionally getting
itself entangled in a woman’s hair. I am inclined to
think that the rapidly and suddenly moving spider has in
the same way established itself as a bogy— especially
where country-folk have added to its terrors by un¬
founded assertions that its bite is poisonous to man.
As a matter of fact, though spiders have poison-producing
fangs, with which they can stab and paralyse their
minute prey, there is no evidence of any European spider
causing injury to a human being in this way. Many
naturalists have made experiments with different species
of spiders and have failed to experience any but the most
trifling inconvenience from their bites — less than that
caused by a bee-sting or the stab of a mosquito.

The whole story of the “ Tarantula ” — a fairly large
spider common in Italy and known to naturalists as
Lycosa tarentula — which receives its name from the
town of Taranto, is now discredited. It was believed
that the bite of this spider caused a peculiar sleepiness
and also painful symptoms in men and women, only to be

142

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

cured by music, which set the bitten victim dancing.
The dance was called the “ Tarantella.” Goldsmith,
the delightful writer of stories and plays, declared in
his “ Animated Nature ” that the whole thing was an
elaborate imposture on the part of the Tarantese peasants
who, for a fee paid by a credulous traveller, would be
bitten, simulate apparent collapse, and then pretend to
be restored by music and the violent dancing of the
“ tarantella,” which, they declared, they felt mysteriously
compelled to perform. It was supposed that the sweating
caused by the exertion freed the body of the poison.
Probably some tradition, from early Roman times, as to
the dire effects of spiders’ bites, may have had to do with
the imposture, but it is also probable that the curious
“ dancing-mania ” (described in Shakespeare’s play of
“ King Lear ”), which spread through Europe in the
Middle Ages, and is spoken of as “ Tarantism,” was
connected with the introduction of an imaginary danger
from the spider’s bite and its equally imaginary cure by
dancing.

The chief modern authority on spiders was the late
Rev. Henry M'Cook, D.D., of Philadelphia. I am in¬
debted to his kindness for a copy of his great book on
American spiders, published in 1889. He inquired into
the subject of poisonous bites by various species of
spiders very carefully, and experimented on himself.
He thinks it probable that the large “ bird’s-nesting ”
spiders of the tropics (often and misleadingly called by
the old name “ Tarantula ”) are capable of inflicting a
poisonous wound on man, causing as much injury as the
sting of a scorpion. He considers that the size of the
animal and the statements made to him render this
probable, but has never seen a case himself, though he
has handled many living specimens of these large spiders.

SPIDER-SENSE AND CAT-SENSE

143

The most definite statements which he cites concerning
spiders’ bites are those as to “ black spiders,” species of
the genus Latrodectus (little bigger than a large specimen
of our common garden spider), which are found in New
Zealand, in the Southern States of North America, and
in North Africa. A carefully recorded case of serious
illness apparently due to a bite of this kind of spider was
given to Dr. M'Cook by a New Zealand settler, and two
cases are recorded of negroes bitten in South Carolina,
one of which terminated fatally. But, on the other hand,
a well-known naturalist, M. Lucas, experimenting in
Algeria, allowed this kind of spider to bite him on many
occasions, and suffered no inconvenience. None of the
reports of serious results were quite satisfactory, for the
spider was not clearly shown to have been the actual
offender, although found near the injured person. The
bite may really have been that of a snake, the proximity
of which was unobserved and unsuspected.

Dr. M'Cook states that even in attacking their prey
spiders do not always make use of their poison, and that
insects when swathed and bound by spiders in their threads
frequently are not paralysed or poisoned at all, but re¬
main capable of movement and recovery when liberated.
He concludes that the poison is only exceptionally used
as a reserve weapon by spiders, and that its virulence
probably depends on the physiological condition of the
spider and its degree of excitement, while its effect is very
largely determined by the actual state of health of the
individual bitten. On the whole, we must conclude that
the belief that any spiders do actually inflict poisonous
bites on human beings is an example of that strange
terror-stricken imagination which is prevalent in bar¬
barous peoples, and in earlier times was common in
Europe, and has largely survived to this day. For

144

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

instance, the country-folk in Suffolk believe that if you
take hold of a toad your hand will wither and become
paralysed. It is true that the skin of the toad secretes a
poison which has an acrid taste and is so virulent that a
dog drops a toad with every evidence of pain and terror
should he take one into his mouth. But the skin of the
human hand is not affected by this poison, and there is
no ground for the belief that it can be paralysed or
withered by contact with a toad. These curious ex¬
amples of credulity among learned and unlearned alike
belong rather to the natural history of man than to
that of the animals concerning which such stories are
told.

We thus are led to bring the exaggerated dread of
spiders into line with other ill-grounded antipathies and
horrors caused by harmless bogies. But we have yet to
examine the statement that persons who have this
antipathy to spiders are able to detect — in consequence
of the peculiar nervous agitation set up in them — the
presence of a spider in a room when no spider has been
seen in that room, and when other persons present have
no suspicion of its presence. The evidence on this point
is altogether insufficient to establish the existence of such
a power. In a room in the middle of London no amount
of searching would reveal the presence of a spider unless
it had been purposely brought there. In any house in
the country careful search would, more probably than
not, lead to the discovery of one or more spiders in any
room. Therefore, if a fanciful nervous person finds
himself (or herself) occupying a room in some country
house where spiders are likely to be concealed, it is not
surprising that the suitability of the place should suggest
their presence, and the consequent nervous agitation
ensue. It is also not surprising that one or more spiders

SPIDER-SENSE AND CAT-SENSE

145

should be discovered in the room when a search is made.
There is no need to assume the existence in the agitated
individual of any peculiar capacity for the detection of
spiders, even such as a specially acute sense of smell or
hearing, let alone a “ sixth sense ” — a “ spider sense.”
Such an assumption is unreasonable and fantastic. Its
truth could be easily put to the test by placing in different
rooms of a London house several perforated boxes, in
one of which the experimenter has concealed a spider.
Anyone with a special sense or sensitiveness enabling
him to recognize the presence of an unseen spider should
be able to point out in which room and which box the
spider is concealed. It is only by such an experiment,
carefully carried out with precautions to avoid any
ordinary indications as to where the spider has been con¬
cealed, that the existence of a “ spider-sense ” could be
rendered probable, and if the result were favourable
then the question would arise, “ By which of the five
gateways of sense has the spider made its presence felt ?4”
The hypothesis that any animal, including man, is
affected “ sensorially ” through any channel excepting
the known sense-organs is one of the truth of which no
proof has ever been given in any case. The unwarranted
belief that such communication by other channels than
the organs of sense do take place is encouraged, on the
part of lovers of mystification, in the minds of credulous
persons by giving to these supposed occurrences a pre¬
tentious name which begs the question as to their reality
— namely, “ telepathy.”

A parallel to the stories about sensitiveness to the
unseen presence of spiders is afforded by those as to the
dislike felt by many people to the common cat and the
discomfort experienced by them in its presence — a dis¬
comfort which is believed by many to be excited by the

146

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

presence of a cat unseen and unindicated by any of the
recognized sense-organs. This curious aversion to the
common cat does exist to an acute degree in many men
and women. It is stated by those who feel it that it does
not extend to the larger cats, such as the lion, tiger,
and,, leopard. It probably arises from a fear and terror
of the domestic cat — established in early childhood— by
startling encounters with cats in dark rooms and the
foolish talk by older people about the mysterious wicked¬
ness of these wandering nocturnal creatures. It is not
surprising that anyone who is a victim of the “ cat
aversion ”|should now and then declare that he (or she)
is sure that there is a cat in the room, although others
present deny that there is, and then that, now and then,
when search is made, poor puss is found curled up in
some remote corner or on the top of a bookshelf ! The
“ aelurophobe ” or “ cat-hater ” will often be mistaken,
but sometimes right, and the cases when he was right
will remain in his friends’ memory, and those in which
he was wrong will be forgotten. A good instance of
successful “ cat-discovery ” was told to me by the dis¬
tinguished Indian official, the late Sir Richard Strachey.
He and his wife, many years ago, started on a long drive
in India in a closed travelling carriage with a very great
soldier, a well-known General. They had not proceeded
more than twenty minutes when the General showed signs
of discomfort, fidgeted, looked about the carriage, and at
last said, “ If I did not know it was impossible, I should
say that there is a cat somewhere in this carriage.” He
maintained this attitude, and complained from time to
time, until, after a couple of hours, the carriage drew up
at the first halting-place. They all got out, and Sir
Richard opened the luggage compartment at the back of
the carriage, when out stepped a somewhat annoyed,
but calm and dignified, domestic cat !

SPIDER-SENSE AND CAT-SENSE

147

The inference immediately suggested by these un¬
doubted facts was that the General was gifted with a
peculiar “ cat-sense,” and had thereby detected the
presence of pussy in the rumble. Were we to accept
this inference it would not be necessary to suppose that
the “cat-sense” was anything more than a very acute
and unusual sense of smell. We should, indeed, not be
surprised at all by a dog thus detecting the presence of a
cat or other animal concealed in a neighbouring compart¬
ment of a travelling carriage. And there is thoroughly
good evidence that though mankind generally, and
especially civilized man, has lost the acuteness of smell-
perception which his early ancestors possessed, yet there
are individuals in whom it is even now exceptionally
keen, and further, that it may act so as to cause aversion
or attraction without the individual so affected being
conscious of the fact that he is being affected through
his olfactory organs. Very interesting in this connection
are the cases (of which I have seen instances) in which,
during the hypnotic trance, the acuteness of the sense of
smell is enormously increased, so that the hypnotized
subject could name different odoriferous substances
when brought, one by one, into a room in stoppered (but
not hermetically sealed) bottles, though the olfactory
sense of no one else was in the least degree affected.

But, on the whole, I do not think that we must con¬
clude that the General had a special acuteness of nose for
the smell of a cat. He was known for his confessed
aversion to cats, and his boast that he could detect the
presence of one by the strange sensations of discomfort
which it produced in him. The experiment had been
tried on him before his drive with Sir Richard Strachey,
and some of his young friends at the residence from which
the carriage set forth were repeating an old performance

148

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

when they put the cat in the rumble. Is it more probable
that the General unconsciously smelt the cat, or that he
got an inkling of the experiment arranged by his young
friends ? In the latter case he must keep up his reputa¬
tion, even should his suspicions, excited by their guilty
faces and hurried movements about the back of the
carriage, prove to be baseless. So he accepted the notion
that a cat had been placed in the carriage, became un¬
comfortable, and declared that were it not impossible he
should say there was a cat in the carriage. If no cat had
been found, his friends and believers in his cat-finding
powers would have said that there must have been one
there the day before ! It is thus, it seems, clear that there
is no ground for launching out into mystical theories of
“ spider-sense ” and “ cat-sense.” It is injurious to
those who are liable to believe what they read, that such
theories should be paraded by writers who do not even
know or care what a sense or a sense-organ is, nor what
is meant by the investigation of nature.

CHAPTER XVII

TWO EXPERIMENTS

RECENTLY a reference made by a public speaker
to the attempt to put salt on a bird’s tail reminded
me of my first attempt, when I was seven years old,
to deal experimentally with a popular superstition. I
was a very trustful child, and I had been assured by
various grown-up friends that if you place salt on a bird’s
tail the bird becomes as it were transfixed and dazed,
and that you can then pick it up and carry it off. On
several occasions I carried a packet of salt into the
London park where my sister and I were daily taken by
our nurse. In vain I threw the salt at the sparrows.
They always flew away, and I came to the conclusion that
I had not succeeded in getting any salt or, at any rate,
not enough on to the tail of any one of them.

Then I devised a great experiment. There was a
sort of creek 8 feet long and 3 feet broad at the west end
of the ornamental water in St. James’s Park. My sister
attracted several ducks with offerings of bread into this
creek, and I, standing near its entrance, with a huge paper
bag of salt, trembled with excitement at the approaching
success of my scheme. I poured quantities — whole
ounces of salt — on to the tails of the doomed birds as they
passed me on their way back from the creek to the open
water. Their tails were covered with salt. But, to my
surprise and horror, they did not stop ! They gaily

150

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

swam forward, shaking their feathers and uttering
derisive “ quacks.” I was profoundly troubled and
distressed. I had clearly proved one thing, namely, that
my nursemaid, uncle, and several other trusted friends —
but not, I am still glad to remember, my father — were
either deliberate deceivers or themselves the victims of
illusion. I was confirmed in my youthful wish to try
whether things are as people say they are or not. Some¬
what early perhaps, I adopted the motto of the Royal
Society, Nullius in verba. And a very good motto it
is, too, in spite of the worthy Todhunter and other toiling
pedagogues, who have declared that it is outrageous to
encourage a youth to seek demonstration rather than
accept the statement of his teacher, especially if the latter
be a clergyman. My experiment was on closely similar
lines to that made by the Royal Society on July 24, 1660
- — in regard to the alleged property of powdered rhinoceros
horn — which was reputed to paralyse poisonous creatures
such as snakes, scorpions, and spiders. We read in the
journal-book, still preserved by the Society, under this
date : “ A circle was made with powder of unicorne’s
horn, and a spider set in the middle of it, but it im¬
mediately ran out severall times repeated. The spider
once made some stay upon the powder.”

A more interesting result followed from an experi¬
ment made in the same spirit twenty-five years later.
I was in Paris, and went with a medical friend to visit
the celebrated physician Charcot, to whom at that time
I was a stranger, at the Salpetriere Hospital. He and
his assistants were making very interesting experiments
on hypnotism. Charcot allowed great latitude to the
young doctors who worked with him. They initiated
and carried through very wild “ exploratory ” experi¬
ments on this difficult subject. Charcot did not dis-

TWO EXPERIMENTS

151

courage them, but did not accept their results unless
established by unassailable evidence, although his views
were absurdly misrepresented by the newspapers and
wondermongers of the day.

At this time there had been a revival of the ancient
and fanciful doctrine of “ metallic sympathies,” which
flourished a hundred years ago, and was even then but
a revival of the strange fancies as to “ sympathetic
powders,” which were brought before the Royal Society
by Sir Kenelm Digby at one of its first meetings, in 1660.
In the journal-book of the Royal Society of June 5 of
that year, we read, “ Magnetical cures were then dis¬
coursed of. Sir Gilbert Talbot promised to bring in what
he knew of sympatheticall cures. Those that had any
powder of sympathy were desired to bring some of it at
the next meeting. Sir Kenelm Digby related that the
calcined powder of toades reverberated, applyed in bagges
upon the stomach of a pestiferate body, cures it by several
applications.” The belief in sympathetic powders and
metals was a last survival of the mediaeval doctrine of
“ signatures,” itself a form of the fetish believed in by
African witch-doctors, and directly connected with the
universal system of magic and witchcraft of European as
well as of more remote populations. To this day, such
beliefs lie close beneath the thin crust of modern know¬
ledge and civilization, even in England, treasured in
obscure tradition and ready to burst forth in grotesque
revivals in all classes of society. The Royal Society put
many of these reputed mechanisms of witchcraft and
magic to the test, and by showing their failure to produce
the effects attributed to them, helpedjgreatly to cause
witches, wizards, and their followers to draw in their
horns and disappear. The germ, however, remained,
and reappears in various forms to-day.

152

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

Thirty years ago some of the doctors in Paris believed
that a small disc of gold, or copper, or of silver, laid
flat on the arm, could produce an absence of sensation
in the arm, and that whilst one person could be thus
affected by one metal another person would respond
only to another metal, according to a supposed “ sym¬
pathy ” or special affinity of the nervous system for this
or that metal. This astonishing doctrine was thought
to be proved by certain experiments made with the
abnormally “ nervous ” women who frequent the Sal-
petriere Hospital as out-patients. That the loss of sensa¬
tion, which was real enough, was due to what is called
“ suggestion ” — that is to say, a belief on the part of the
patient that such would be the case, because the doctor
said it would — and had nothing to do with one metal
or another, was subsequently proved by making use of
wooden discs in place of metallic ones, the patient being
led to suppose that a disc of metal of the kind with which
she believed herself “ sympathetic ” was being applied.
Sensation disappeared just as readily as when a special
metallic disc was used.

The old hypothesis of the influence of a magnet on
the human body was at this time revived, and Charcot’s
pupils found that when a susceptible female patient
held in the hand a bar of iron surrounded by a coil of
copper wire leading to a chemical electric cell or battery
nothing happened so long as the connection was broken.
But as soon as the wire was connected so as to set up an
electric current and to make the bar of iron into a magnet,
the hand and arm (up to the shoulder) of the young
woman holding the bar, lost all sensation. She was
not allowed to see her hand and arm, and was apparently
quite unconscious of the thrusting of large carpet-needles
into, and even through, them, though as long as the

TWO EXPERIMENTS

153

bar of iron was not magnetized she shrunk from a pin¬
prick applied to the same part. I saw this experiment
with Charcot and some others present, and I noticed
that the order to an assistant to “ make contact,” that is
to say, to convert the bar of iron into a magnet, was
given very emphatically by Charcot, and that there was
an attitude of expectation on the part of all present —
which was followed by the demonstration by means of
needle-pricking that the young woman’s arm had lost
sensation, or, as they say, “ was in a state of anaesthesia.”

Charcot went away saying he should repeat the
experiment before some medical friends in an hour or
two. In the meantime, being left alone in the laboratory
with my companion as witness, I emptied the chemical
fluid (potassium bichromate) from the electric battery
and substituted pure water. It was now incapable of
setting up an electric current and converting the bar into
a magnet. When Charcot returned with his visitors, the
patient was brought in, and the whole ritual repeated.
There was no effect on sensation when the bar was held
in the hand so long as the order to set the current going,
and so magnetize the bar, had not been given. At last
the word was given, “ Make ! ” An assistant quickly
submerged the galvanic couple in the cell supposed to
contain a solution of potassium bichromate, and at once
the patient’s arm became anaesthetized, as earlier in the
day. We ran large carpet-needles into the hand without
the smallest evidence of the patient’s knowledge. The
order was given to break the current (that is, to cease
magnetizing the bar), and at once the young woman
exhibited signs of discomfort, and remonstrated with
Charcot for allowing such big needles to be thrust into
her hand when she was devoid of sensation ! My
experiment had succeeded perfectly.

154

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

It would not have done to let Charcot, or anyone else
(except my witness), know that when the order “ Make ”
was given, there was no “ making,” and that the bar
remained as before un-magnetized because the active
bichromate had been replaced by water. The conviction of
every one, including Charcot himself, that the bar became
a magnet, and that loss of sensation would follow, was a
necessary condition of the “ suggestion ” or control of the
patient. It was thus demonstrated that the state of the
iron bar as magnet or not magnet had nothing to do with
the result, but that the important thing was that the
patient should believe that the bar became a magnet,
and that she should be influenced by her expectation,
and that of all those around her, that the bar, being now
a magnet, sensation would disappear from her arm.
With appropriate apologies I explained to Charcot that
the electric battery had been emptied by me, and that
no current had been produced. The assistants rushed to
verify the fact, and I was expecting that I should be
frigidly requested to take my leave, when my hand was
grasped, and my shoulder held by the great physician,
who said, “ Mais que vous avez bien fait, cher Mon¬
sieur ! ” I had many delightful hours with him in after
years, both at the Salpetriere and in his beautiful old
house and garden in the Boulevard St. Germain.

There are few “ subjects ” in this country for the
student of hypnotism to equal the patients of the Sal¬
petriere and other hospitals in France — and very few
amongst those who read, and even write, about “ oc¬
cultism ” and “super-normal phenomena” know the
leading facts which have been established in regard to
this important branch of psychology. The study of the
natural ^history of the mind, its modes of activity, and
its defects and diseases is of fundamental importance —

TWO EXPERIMENTS

155

but its results are often either unknown or greatly mis¬
understood by those who have most need of such know¬
ledge, namely, those who, mistaking the attitude of an
ignorant child for that of “ a candid inquirer,” try to
form a judgment as to the truth or untruth of stories
of ghosts, thought-transference, spirit-controls, crystal-
gazing, divining-rods, amulets, and the evil eye.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE LAST OF THE ALCHEMISTS

GREAT interest was excited fourteen years ago
by the assertion in the daily press that a French
experimenter had devised a secret process by
means of which sugar could be converted in the labora¬
tory into large marketable diamonds. The distinguished
chemist, Moissan, had a few years earlier obtained very
minute true diamonds by heating sugar to a very high
temperature in a closed iron bomb placed in a furnace.
This gave a certain plausibility to the pretended dis¬
covery. But, like the elusive “philosopher’s stone” of
the mediaeval alchemists, which should convert base
metals into gold, when fused with them, the modern
diamond-maker’s secret process proved to be a
worthless fraud.

In England, after the true scientific spirit had been
brought to bear on such inquiries by Robert Boyle and
the founders of the Royal Society in the later years of the
seventeenth century, little was heard of “ alchemy,” and
the word “ chemistry ” took its place, signifying a new
method of study in which the actual properties of bodies,
their combinations and decompositions, were carefully
ascertained and recorded without any prepossessions as
to either the mythical philosopher’s stone or the elixir of

THE LAST OF THE ALCHEMISTS 157

life. But as late as 1783— only a hundred and forty
years ago — we come across a strange and tragic history
in the records of the Royal Society associated with
the name of James Price, who was a gentleman com¬
moner of Magdalen Hall, Oxford. After graduating as
M.A. in 1777, he was, at the age of twenty-nine, elected
a Fellow of the Royal Society of London. In the
following year the University of Oxford conferred on
him the degree of M.D. in recognition of his discoveries in
natural science, and especially for his chemical labours.
Price was born in London in 1752, and his name was
originally Higginbotham, but he changed it on receiving
a fortune from a relative.

This fortunate young man, whose abilities and
character impressed and interested the learned men of
the day, provided himself with a laboratory at his country
house at Stoke, near Guildford. Here he carried on his
researches, and the year after that in which honours were
conferred on him by his University and the great scientific
Society in London, he invited a number of noblemen and
gentlemen to his laboratory to witness the performance of
seven experiments, similar to those of the alchemists —
namely, the transmutation of baser metals into silver and
into gold. The Lords Onslow, Palmerston, and King of
that date were amongst the company. Price produced a
white powder, which he declared to be capable of con¬
verting fifty times its own weight of mercury into silver,
and a red powder, which, he said, was capable of con¬
verting sixty times its own weight of mercury into gold.
The preparation of these powders was a secret, and it was
the discovery of them for which Price claimed attention.
The experiments were made. In seven successive trials
the powders were mixed in a crucible with mercury, first
four crucibles, with weighed quantities of the white powder,

158

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

and then three other crucibles with weighed quantities
of the red powder. Silver and gold appeared in the
crucibles after heating in a furnace, as predicted by Price.
The precious metal produced was examined by assayers
and pronounced genuine. Specimens of the gold were
exhibited to His Majesty King George III, and Price
published a pamphlet entitled “ An Account of Some
Experiments, etc.,” in which he repudiated the doctrine
of the philosopher’s stone, but claimed that he had, by
laborious experiment, discovered how to prepare these
composite powders, which were the practical realization
of that long-sought marvel. He did not, however,
reveal the secret of their preparation. The greatest
excitement was caused by this publication appearing
under the name of James Price, M.D. (Oxon.),
F.R.S. It was translated into foreign languages, and
caused a tremendous commotion in the scientific
world.

Some of the older Fellows of the Royal Society,
friends of Price, now urged him privately to make known
his mode of preparing the powders, and pointed out the
propriety of his bringing his discovery before the Society.
But this Price refused to do. To one of his friends he
wrote that he feared he might have been deceived by
the dealers who had sold mercury to him, and that
apparently it already contained gold. He was urged by
two leading Fellows of the Society to repeat his experi¬
ments in their presence, and he thereupon wrote that
the powders were exhausted, and that the expense of
making more was too great for him to bear, whilst
the labour involved had already affected his health,
and he feared to submit it to a further strain. The
Royal Society now interfered, and the president (Sir
Joseph Banks) and officers insisted that “ for the

THE LAST OF THE ALCHEMISTS

159

honour of the Society ” he must repeat the experiments
before delegates of the Society, and show that his
statements were truthful and his experiments without
fraud.

Under this pressure the unhappy Dr. Price consented
to repeat the experiments. He undertook to prepare in
six weeks ten powders similar to those which he had used
in his public demonstration. He appears to have been
in a desperate state of mind, knowing that he could not
expect to deceive the experts of the society. He hastily
studied the works of some of the German alchemists as a
forlorn hope, trusting that he might chance upon a success¬
ful method in their writings. He also prepared a bottle of
“ laurel water, ” a deadly poison. Three Fellows of the
Royal Society came on the appointed day, in August
1783, to the laboratory, near Guildford. It is related (I
hope it is not true) that one of them visited the laboratory
the day before the trial, and, having obtained entrance by
bribing the housekeeper in Price’s absence, discovered
that his crucibles had false bottoms and recesses in which
gold or silver could be hidden before the quicksilver and
powder were introduced. Dr. Price appears to have
received his visitors, but whether he commenced the test
experiments in their presence or not does not appear.
When they were solemnly assembled in the laboratory he
quietly drank a tumblerful of the laurel water (hydro¬
cyanic acid), which he had prepared, and fell dead before
them. He left a fortune of £12,000 in the Funds. It
has been discussed whether Dr. Price was a madman or an
impostor. Probably vanity led him on to the course of
deception which ended in this tragic way. He could not
bring himself to confess failure or deception, nor to ab¬
scond. He ended his trouble by suicide. He was only
thirty-one years of age ! Not inappropriately he has

160

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

been called the “ Last of the Alchemists,” though a
long interval of time separates him from the last but
one and the days when the old traditions of the Arabians’
“ al-kimia ” were really treasured and the mystic art
still practised.

CHAPTER XIX

EXTREME OLD AGE

FROM time to time the self-control of some con¬
temporary journalists suddenly gives way, and
the natural tendency to write nonsense about
supposed marvels proves too much for them. We
have not, it is true, for some years been favoured with
reports of the arrival of the great sea-serpent, nor have
extinct monsters of enormous size been frequently
discovered walking about in remote parts of the African
continent. But three well-seasoned, oft-exploded, and
ever-fascinating marvels may be expected at any moment
to be re-born from their ashes in the newspaper Press.
These are, first, the so-called “ well-attested ” cases of
survival on the part of certain old men to the age of 130,
185, and even 207 years ; secondly, the discovery of a
“ toad in a hole,” which hops out of a block of coal,
having been concealed therein, according to the wonder-
mongers, for countless ages ; thirdly, the pretended
discoveries of subterranean water by the aid of “ the
divining rod ” — that great instrument of the magic art —
of the ancient use of and belief in which the modern trifler
in “ occultism ” is apparently ignorant.1 II

1 For some account of the belief as to the survival of pre-Adamite
toads in slabs of rock or of coal, and for a brief discussion of the pre¬
tensions of “ dowsers " and water-finders, see chapters xxxvi-xl of
my book, “ Diversions of a Naturalist ” (Methuen, 1915).

162

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

Each of these marvels has, like “ telepathy ” or
“ second sight,” and the extruding of “ ectoplasmic ”
ghosts by enterprising mediums, been recently announced
as a “ discovery ” — not, of course, for the first time.
According to some wonder-mongers, whenever you tell
a story asserting the existence of something new and
astonishing, you “ discover ” it. That, however, is not
— I need hardly say — the sense in which the word is
used by scientific investigators. When Professor and
Madame Curie “ discovered ” the wonderful element
“ radium ” they placed it, so to speak, “ on the table,”
and every one has been able to examine it and to prove
that the statements made about it are true. When Dr.
Laveran, of Paris, “ discovered ” that malarial fever is
due to a parasite in the blood he showed the parasite,
and showed how one can always find it, and thus he
enabled anyone and every one to see it and to examine
its relation to malarial fever. Those are instances of
“ discovery.” Mere guesses and assertions without proof
are not “ discovery.”

The whole subject of the possible and probable dura¬
tion of an individual’s life is one which has naturally
great interest for mankind. Apart from the question of
the duration of human life, we know that the kinds or
species of animals and plants show great differences as
compared with one another in regard to duration of life.
Life is, as is universally recognized, a tender thing, and
liable to be suddenly arrested and brought to a close by
accident or disease at all ages. A vast proportion of
living things perish in the first days of their existence,
soon after they have been separated as germs, embryos,
or incompletely grown “ young ” from the mother, of
which they are detached bits or buds. If we speak of
“ the average duration of life ” in any species we must

EXTREME OLD AGE

163

include all the individuals born or separated from the
parent, and since it is the fact that in the case of some
animals and plants (for instance, in the case of the oyster
and many worms) several million young are produced by
each mother, of which on the average only one pair sur¬
vive to maturity (if we take account of what goes on in
all regions, favourable and unfavourable, where the
species occurs), it is clear that the “ average duration of
life ” must be very low in these species and very high
where only a dozen young are produced by each mother
In man in this country it has been shown to be, now,
about fifty years. Consequently “ the average duration of
life ” in any species, even if we know what length of time
it is, does not tell us to what age an animal or plant, if
it has escaped the dangers of childhood and arrived at
maturity, may be expected to live, nor what age it may,
in exceptional cases, possibly attain.

In the case of man we have in civilized States arrived
at a means of forming a fairly accurate conclusion on
these two points, in consequence of the keeping, by public
authority, of registers of the actual population, of the
number of individuals born annually, and of the number
of deaths every year and of the ages at which these deaths
have occurred. These important registers have not yet
been kept, in an accurate way, for as much as a century,
but they have been kept for a sufficient time to give broadly
stated conclusions. The “ expectation of life ” (as it is
called) at different ages can now be calculated in the more
civilized communities, and great care has been given to
collecting the statistics and reasoning from them cor¬
rectly, because it is necessary for enabling life insurance
associations to carry on their business, and also to enable
the Government to form correct conclusions as to the
yalue of public regulations in regard to sanitary legisla-

164

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

tion and the causes which affect the increase of popula¬
tion. Thus we have tables published more than fifty
years ago 1 showing what is the probable expectation of
life at different ages of males and females, and to some
extent we know how much that “ expectation ” differs
in different classes and sections of the population. The
actuaries at this present date, namely, 1922, argue from
the collected returns of births and of deaths at successive
ages that in England a newborn male child may legiti¬
mately “ expect ” to live fifty-two years ; having reached
20, he may expect forty-five more years of life ; at 40
the “ expectation ” is twenty-eight; at 60, nearly fourteen ;
at 70, only eight and a half ; at 90, more than two ; and
even at 100 yet one year more ! Women have a slightly
better prospect of long life than men. Thus, at 60 years
of age they have an expectation of fifteen and a half
instead of fourteen years. It is found that married
people have a prospect of somewhat longer life than
unmarried. It not only (as some people say) seems, but
actually is, longer. It appears from such statistics as
have been gathered that agricultural labourers in rural

1 It must be remembered that the figures given by such tables are
not precisely the same to-day as they were forty years ago. The
conditions have improved, and the statistics now show a small but
marked increase in the " expectation of life ” at various ages, though
the expectation at 55 years of age and after remains as it was. The
details of these important developments are discussed and brought
up to date in the periodic reports of the Registrar-General — so far as
this country is concerned. Those who desire to inspect the actual
figures and to trace the improvement in successive decades from the
year 1844 onwards can do so by consulting the “Annual Report of
the Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health (Sir George
Newman) for the year 1921,” to be purchased through any bookseller
— price is. 6d. Life is twelve years longer to the newborn child than
it was in the days of our grandfathers. The general death-rate has
fallen from 21-4 per thousand in 1871-80 to 12 1 per thousand in 1921,
and the deaths of children under one year of age fell in the same period
from 149 to the astonishingly small figure of 83,

EXTREME OLD AGE

165

districts have at 60 the best prospects of long life of any
class — three or four years better than the general popula¬
tion ; females of the aristocracy come next ; whilst
business clerks are more than a year below the common
figure. Distinguished people have somewhat shorter
lives than undistinguished people ; they have to pay for
their success.

We also know by the collection of facts at the census
made in this country every ten years, and by the publica¬
tion of the register of deaths, what is the extreme limit of
age to which, as a matter of repute, any man or woman
has attained in this country during the last fifty years or
so. The mere statement by an individual, or by his or
her friends, that he or she is of an unusual age, something
over ioo years, is, of course, not sufficient evidence that
such an age has actually been attained. There may be
mistakes, lapse of memory, confusion of an old person
with his or her father or mother. Consequently, before
any statement of reputed great age is accepted as probably
true, it is necessary to find the register of the birth of the
supposed centenarian, and to obtain evidence that the
birth-register really refers to the individual for whom
exceptionally great age is claimed. Formerly this was a
difficult, often an impossible, task, for two reasons : first,
because the population in country places was less
educated than is now the case, and therefore less accurate,
less persuaded of the value of accuracy, and more given
to indulgence in harmless flights of fancy ; and secondly,
because the registers were only those of baptism or of a
private, unofficial character and badly kept, if kept at
all. Now, however, in Western Europe, it is less usual
to meet with baseless declarations of excessive age on
the part of old people. On the other hand, in Russia
(before the war) and elsewhere, where the population is

166

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

in a primitive stage of mental development, such asser¬
tions continued to be common, and were entered without
verification for what they were worth (which was next
to nothing) in official returns. According to the latter,
one person in every 1000 born in Russia attains the age
of ioo years !

In the middle of last century Sir George Cornewall
Lewis exposed the loose conclusions which were then
general as to the occurrence of cases in which man’s life
was prolonged to over ioo years, even to 130 or 150. He
asked, according to correct scientific method, in each case
what was the evidence for the assertion that the sup¬
posed marvel of longevity had attained the prodigious
age attributed to him. “ How is it,” he said, “ that
people come to make these assertions ? ” There are many
possible answers to this question, e.g. deliberate lying,
ignorance, lapse of memory, genuine confusion of son
with father, and also there is the possibility that the
statement is made because it is true. The method
pursued by Sir George Cornewall Lewis is the reasonable
one to use in the investigation of all such assertions of
marvellous occurrences. It is one which every) one
should apply to assertions as to the “ rappings ” and
other “ manifestations ” of supposed disembodied spirits
and as to asserted “ second sight ” or telepathy, and other
statements by individuals that they have had experience
of what are called “ occult ” agencies. The question
to be put and answered in regard to all such assertions is
not “ Is this possible ? ” but “ How is it that such and
such persons come to make this assertion of their belief
in, or supposed experience of, this improbable occur¬
rence ? ” Sir G. C. Lewis showed that there was no
evidence worthy of the name to support the traditions
still generally accepted seventy years ago of the attainment

EXTREME OLD AGE

107

of the great age of 130 to 150 years by Jenkins, Parr, and
the Countess of Desmond. He even failed to find evi¬
dence of anyone completing a century of life, and accord¬
ingly held that no such case had occurred. The publica¬
tion of his inquiries led, however, to the production by
other investigators of evidence which satisfied him as to
the existence of several instances in which the age of 100
years had been attained, and of some in which 103 years
had been reached. Plenty of well-sifted and established
cases of a longevity extending to this limit are now on
record and undisputed, but I only know of one case in
which there is plausible evidence that as much as 107
years was reached, and, so far as I am aware, that
evidence has not been thoroughly examined and tested.

Under these circumstances I was, twenty years ago, not
a little surprised to find the genial gossip of a respected
weekly paper — I refrain from giving his name, as I am
far frorfi wishing to attack him in any way — writing :
“ Human vitality has increased. We are not far from
the time when 200 instead of 100 will be looked upon as
extreme old age.” “ Look at the evidence in favour of
it,” he says. “ At the beginning of the year 1901, twenty
survivors from the eighteenth century were alive in
England.” The oldest was born in 1793 and one in
1797. This does not, it is evident, take us far into a
second century, nor is there anything novel or improbable
about such a proportion of centenarians. So he proceeds
to give some instances, by name, of much greater age, of
the reality of which, however, there is no evidence worthy
of attention, and none whatever offered by my friend the
writer. The first is a Mr. Robert Tylor, said to have
been the oldest postmaster in the country, who is reputed
to have died in the year 1898 at the age of 1 34* Did he ?
Another is Peter Bryan, of Tynan, who cut a new set

168

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

of teeth at the age of 117” — a proceeding which has
often been attributed to old people, and equally often the
belief in its occurrence has been shown to be due to faulty
observation. No case of an aged individual cutting a
new tooth is admitted by those who are experts in
dentistry. The jaw sometimes shrinks in old age and
exposes the stump of an old tooth previously concealed,
which is erroneously regarded as a “ new ” tooth. Then
my friend cites Paul Czortan, of Temesover, in Hungary,
who, he declares without more ado, died in 1724 at the
age of 185, leaving a son aged 158. With equal abrupt¬
ness and apparent confidence he asserts that there was
once a man named Thomas Carew who lived to be 207
years old. These are samples of those bald assertions of
“ marvels of longevity,” entirely devoid of any evidence
in their support, which Sir G. C. Lewis rightly declared to
be worthless. It makes one rub one’s eyes when one sees
them trotted out once more, after seventy years in the dust¬
bin, by a writer who is not habitually reckless. He goes
on to say that it is not work that ages, but leaving off
work. The facts point, in my judgment, to the opposite
conclusion. And he ends by expressing the opinion that
the “ allotted span ” of human life is being gradually
increased from threescore and ten to a much higher
figure, and states that “ certain scientists ” (certain or
uncertain ?) tell us that even tenscore will one day be
possible. I am sorry to say that those prophetic scientists
are unknown to me.

What I find interesting in the views put forward by
the writer above cited is the notion that there is an
allotted span to human life — that which has been called a
“ lease of life.” One might, on the contrary, conceive of
human life (or that of any animal or plant) as having no
inherent inborn limitation. One might admit that it is

EXTREME OLD AGE

169

liable to be stopped by disease or violence at any time,
or, on the other hand, finally arrested by the gradually
accumulated effects of wear and tear resulting from years
of struggle and disappointment. So that if the wear
and tear were avoided or reduced to a minimum, human
life might go on indefinitely. The view, however,
that there is a lease of life, that the living organism is
“ wound up ” for a certain limited “ run,” or, to put it in
another way, that there is “ a matter of life ” — like the
magical peau de chagrin of Balzac — which is gradu¬
ally but surely used up by every vital act — is generally
accepted as the true conception, at any rate in regard
to the life of man and higher animals. “ We live at the
expense of our strength ” — “ ex viribus vivimus ,” said
Galen. In 1870 I published a little book on “ Com¬
parative Longevity,” in which these matters are dis¬
cussed. In later years Weismann, and also Metchnikoff,
have dealt with the subject in valuable treatises, of which
I will write further.

CHAPTER XX

LONGEVITY

AN important consideration in coming to any con¬
clusion as to the probable extension of the dura¬
tion of human life in the future or in the past,
beyond the limit of ioo years (to which in very exceptional
cases two or three additional years may be added), is as
to whether there is in the substance of living things an
innate, inherent limit of endurance, what has been called
“ a lease of life.” The view has been very generally
accepted that there is such a limit in most animals and
plants, if not in all. The conception may be illustrated
by the analogy of a clock, wound up to go for so many
days or weeks. It may be stopped by any one of a variety
of external agencies before the limit is reached, but by
no possible contingency can it continue “ to go ” beyond
the limit absolutely imposed by the mechanism wound up
to its fullest extent. Another analogy is that of an initial
provision to every individual of a certain limited amount
of material, which is very gradually but constantly and
inevitably used up in the mere process of living, and must
come to an end after the lapse of a period of time pro¬
portional to the amount of the initial provision, whatever
care may be taken to avoid accidents and the waste or
injury to the inborn “ matter of life.” Whilst higher
animals have been regarded as possessing this limited
provision — this lease of life, varying in amount in

LONGEVITY

171

different species — it has been supposed that some lower
animals are not so limited, but die only by the accident
of violence or disease, or by growing so large that it
becomes impossible for them to obtain the food necessary
to maintain life, since ten smaller and younger individuals
of the same species will be necessarily more capable of
securing a sufficient quantity of scattered food in a given
time than will be one individual equal in bulk to the ten
small ones.

The notion that there is an inherent limit of life in
animals — inherent necessary death due after a fixed lapse
of time — is favoured by the obvious fact that there is a
limit to the growth or increase of size of most animals and
plants which are familiar to us — a limit which differs very
greatly in different species. It is held that just as we
cannot by taking thought add a cubit to our stature, so
we cannot by taking thought add ten years to our “ lease
of life,” though there may be born “ giants of longevity ”
as there are born “ giants of stature.” I have, many
years ago, written of this lease of life as “ potential
longevity.” It is, however, an elusive quantity. For it
is admitted that in wild animals, as well as in man, the
actual cessation of life must be determined in every in¬
dividual case, not only by this innate or specific potential
longevity — differing in every species but common to
all the individuals of a species — but also by the
results of the daily necessary “ wear and tear,” injuries
and diseases to which all the individuals of a species are
naturally exposed — causes which are external to and
apart from the living substance itself. There is an
average of such injurious incidents in the natural life
of every species of living thing. I he “recuperative
power of the organism to a large extent removes the
injurious results of these destructive external agencies,

172

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

but, like proverbial drops of water, they in the long run
tell. Like the equally proverbial pitcher carried to the
well, the animal or plant, sooner or later — after a lapse of
time which has an average value for each distinct species
according to those natural circumstances to which it is
adapted — encounters one or a series of injuries which
weaken it and finally cause its death, whatever its inherent
lease of life or specific potential longevity may be.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to separate the animal
(or even man) from these contingent external injurious
agencies, and to guard it under observation so as to deter¬
mine what is the amount of its absolute potential longevity.
We really know very little of the length of life of animals
in their wild, natural conditions. Of the longevity of
those which live in deep waters or are, for various other
reasons, inaccessible to constant observation, we can only
form rough guesses. It is easier in the case of plants of
all kinds, herbs, shrubs, and trees, to arrive at the facts,
because plants do not shrink from man’s approach.

Most of our knowledge of the longevity of animals is
derived from the observation of them in non-natural con¬
ditions, either when protected by man from their natural
enemies, or bred as domesticated animals. The length
of life which is the result of an animal’s or plant’s innate
lease of life, its specific potential longevity, when checked
and diminished by the operation of the injurious agencies
which inevitably belong to its native conditions of life as
a wild animal, can be estimated in some cases. It must
be recognized by a distinct term, and may be called “ the
effective longevity of a species,” the longevity which is
the regular average performance of those members of a
species which reach maturity, the outcome of their innate
hereditary lease of life, subjected to the operation of

LONGEVITY

173

injurious agencies, which are a normal and necessary
accompaniment of the natural course of life proper to the
species.

Some few facts as to this effective longevity may be
cited. Dogs are “ old ” at twelve years ; they show
“ senile decay ” (loss of teeth, etc.) at that age. In wild
nature they die at that age, killed by carnivorous animals
or by other younger animals of their own species, or by
inability to capture food. Under man’s care they may
live to twice that age. Horses in the natural wild state
die (by the wearing away of the teeth) at twenty years,
but have been kept alive till thirty and even forty years
when domesticated and provided with suitable food.
The longevity of the elephant has been exaggerated ;
probably its habitual wild life does not exceed fifty years.
Bovines, goats, deer, and sheep probably do not live more
than from twelve to fifteen years in wild conditions. The
rabbit and the guinea-pig and mammals of this size
have an effective longevity, in the wild state, of six or
seven years. The lion and tiger probably live some
fifteen years in wild conditions, and may be kept to twice
that age by human care. The cat has in the wild state
a life of eight or nine years ; it has been kept by man to
eighteen years of age. We really know nothing of the
habitual length of life of the great apes. Birds certainly
live longer than do mammals of similar bulk. Geese,
swans, ravens, and some birds of prey have been known
to reach the age of fifty years ; even canaries (in cages)
may live to twenty years of age. Many well-certified
cases of parrots and cockatoos reaching the age of eighty
years and more are known. Crocodiles and tortoises
have apparently great length of life — some kept in tanks
or gardens are supposed, on good grounds, to be 200
years old. Some fish, like pike and carp, kept under

174

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

observation in ponds, appear to have exceeded 1 50 years
in age — though the evidence is not conclusive. It has
been supposed that reptiles and fish, which often continue
to grow as long as they live, have not — as mammals and
birds are supposed to have — a limited “ lease of life.”
As we shall see, it is, as a matter of fact, a difficult thing
to arrive at a conclusion as to the presence or the absence
of this “ lease of life ” in any group of animals. Most
of the smaller invertebrates are shortlived. Insects live
from a year to seventeen years in the larval state, but
have as a rule only a few hours to six months in the perfect
or “ imago ” state. Some molluscs are shown by their
size and that of their shells to live twenty years at least,
but most have only from two to a dozen years of life.
The larger Crustacea (such as the lobster and big crabs)
may be inferred from their size to have twenty or more
years of life : smaller forms die when a year old. The
most interesting fact known about length of life in one
of the lower animals is this, namely, that a common sea-
anemone (Actinia mesembryanthemum), captured by
Sir John Dalzell in 1828, lived in a tank in Edinburgh
for sixty years, and produced many hundred young ones
during that period. The eventual cause of its death is
not known, but was apparently some mischance, and not
senile decay.

Trees of various kinds have different effective longevi¬
ties. Thus fruit trees and trees with soft wood, such
as the poplar and the willow, live from fifty to sixty years.
They are usually killed in the end by destructive fungi
and moulds. The cypress and the olive are said to
live 800 years, the oak 1500, the elm 300, the cedar
2000, the yew 3000, and the big Californian trees
4000 years, but all these figures are probably greatly
exaggerated.

LONGEVITY

175

A new aspect is given to the problem of longevity
when we inquire into the case of the simplest living things,
those unicellular organisms consisting of a single nu¬
cleated droplet of living protoplasm, such as the Amoebae,
the Infusoria, the unicellular Algae, and the Bacteria.
They have no limit of life, no senility. They keep on
multiplying by fission, and careful observations show
that the same stock may be kept and carried on, nourish¬
ing itself, growing, and dividing, for an indefinite time.
They show no signs of age provided that food is present ;
they seem to be practically immortal unless accident of
some kind checks their career. They justify the view
that living substance or protoplasm does not necessarily
as a result of its chemical and physical constitution
undergo natural decay and death. This has led Weis-
mann to point out that in every many-celled animal and
plant there are some such immortal protoplasmic cells,
the germ-cells, or reproductive cells. They arise in each
new individual by a setting aside of some of the cells
which result from the division of the parental egg-cell,
and whilst the other cells which form the body which
moves and feeds and assumes characteristic form,
naturally die in the course of time and disappear, the
germ-cells or some of them persist, giving rise (as egg-
cells or germ-cells) to new individuals and to new germ-
cells. Thus it is the body-cells which die as a sort of
“ husk ” which has served its turn and protected the
germ-cells until they are set free to multiply and start a
new individual or husk, enclosing in its turn a certain
number of cells of the immortal germ-plasm.

From this point of view it would appear that the
greater or less duration or longevity of the body enclosing
the deathless germ-plasm is a question of physiological
adaptation which is varied, according to the advantage of

176

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

the species, by natural selection. In some organisms it
is an advantage that the body-husk should get quickly
through its business, and be replaced by a new generation ;
in others a long duration of the body once grown to full
size and complexity is advantageous for the preservation
of the species. The suggestion here is that the potential
length of life of the body (as apart from the germ-cells) is
an hereditary character of every species, increased or
diminished by the natural selection of variations in that
character, as are other characters, in consequence of the
struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest
variations. This conception involves the supposition
that there is in multicellular animals an ultimate innate
tendency of the body-cells (as distinct from the repro¬
ductive cells) to senile decay and death, which may be
remote or may come on rapidly. And there is no reason
for rejecting the supposition that some of the products of
division of immortal “ cells ” of protoplasm, themselves
incapable of death by old age, should acquire this
mortality, this quality of senescence, and ultimate natural
death, as a secondary and definite character of the body
or envelope which is formed as the carrier of the new
germ-cells.

Metchnikoff, on the other hand, who fifteen years ago
wrote a most interesting book on this subject (“ The
Nature of Man ” : London, Heinemann), avoids, as far
as possible, the assumption that there is, in any kind of
plants or animals, an inherent innate limit of life. He
devotes his attention to the examination of the nature
of that enfeeblement which comes on in old age in most
living things, that diseased or unhealthy state to which
we have already had to refer as “ senility ” or “ senile
decay,” and he is led to the conclusion that though in
some cases (such as that of the insects known as “ day-

LONGEVITY

177

flies ”) there is evidence of a strictly limited innate
“ potential longevity,” yet that in higher animals there is
no need to assume any such inherent limit to the lease of
life. The changes due to disease and external injurious
agencies are (according to Metchnikoff) sufficient to
account for the stoppage of life, and if we could avoid all
those injurious agencies, as we can and do avoid many of
them (but not so many as we might), human life and the
life of animals similarly protected and directed by man
might be longer as a rule than it is, and far happier and
healthier in its later years. The result to be aimed at,
according to Metchnikoff, is not that of increasing the
extreme limit of life from ioo to 150 or 200 years, but
that of raising the general length of life to be expected
by men and women of 30 years of age, so that instead of
dying as a rule at or before 65 years of age, they may as a
rule survive to 100 years. Simultaneously the last thirty
or forty years of that lengthened life would become a
contented and healthy period instead of being marked by
labour and sorrow. It is a noteworthy fact that whilst
the records of the Registrar-General, extending over
more than half a century, above cited, show a continuous
diminution of the death-rate in mankind below the age
of fifty-five, there is no similar evidence of any corre¬
sponding increase in the number of years to which life
is likely to extend once the age of fifty-five has been
attained.

CHAPTER XXI

METCHNIKOFF ON OLD AGE

WHATEVER may be the causes at work —
whether the exhaustion by the efflux of time of
an initial limited power of endurance, or, on the
other hand, the cumulative result of wear and tear and
disease acting on living substance, which has in itself no
inherent tendency to “ play out ” or “ run down ” after
any length of living — we have the important fact that the
“ May of life ” after a certain length of time does, as a
rule, “ fall into the sear, the yellow leaf,” and gives place
to “ senile decay.” Metchnikoff (in his book called
“ The Nature of Man ”) has made a special study of this
“ senile decay.” He has no difficulty in showing that in
man and the higher animals, as well as many of the lower
animals, this senile decay asserts itself after a certain
period of life. It is a condition of injurious change and
enfeeblement in the tissues of the body which has not been
sufficiently studied by modern methods, but which must
be so studied with the view of averting it in mankind.
Metchnikoff seems to doubt the existence in man of a
necessary or natural inherent tendency to this decay, but
he cites the life-history of many insects, in which, as in
some other animals, he admits the existence of a sharp
and inherent limit to life. A familiar case is that of the
Day-flies (Ephemerids), which, after spending two or

i78

METCHNIKOFF ON OLD AGE

179

three years as “ larvae ” under water in the mud of streams,
feeding voraciously, undergo a rapid change and become
winged insects which fly in huge numbers over the water.
Their flight lasts only an hour or two, and is occupied in
the fertilization of the eggs, after which they fall dead or
dying into the water. They have no jaws and cannot
feed, but they do not die from want of food, nor from the
exhaustion due todhe passage of the reproductive material
from their bodies. Metchnikoff has examined many such
dead individuals carefully, and found that among them
were many males which had not discharged their sperm.
He also satisfied himself that death was not due to any
deadly microbe which suddenly attacks the flies as an
epidemic. It seems practically certain that they die
simply because they are, when they escape into the air as
“ flies,” only “ wound up ” for about six hours’ further
activity — a short lease of life which no experimental
ingenuity on the part of man can prolong. A curious
and important fact is that these insects (as also the winged
form of ants and the little green-flies or plant-lice) show
no fear or shrinking from being caught and handled.
They have lost the instinct of self-preservation, though
when in the larval condition and living in water they are
difficult to catch, and run away with great activity from
a tube with which one endeavours to pick them up from
the jar of water in which one is keeping them for observa¬
tion. There is apparently an “ instinct ” for life in most
animals, and also in some animals, when old age has
arrived, an instinct for death — a willing surrender and
abandonment of the struggle.

I confess that whilst I hold with Metchnikoff that the
avoidable diseases and “ wearing ” away of parts of the
body are accountable for the pains and usual discomfort
of old age and, as a rule, for eventual death, so that we

180

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

cannot, with regard to man and higher animals, deter¬
mine with accuracy the existence of cases of “ natural
death ” from inherent limitation of the power of endur¬
ance of the protoplasm or living substance of the body,
yet it seems to me most probable that there is such a
limitation, more remote in large animals than in smaller
ones, and less remote in those which exhibit a greater
activity or “ output ” in their lives than in those which
are less active, and live, so to speak, more slowly.

Whatever view may be considered probable in regard
to the existence of a natural limit to possible life in man,
there can be no doubt as to the vast importance of the
facts and views put forward by Metchnikolf as to the
power which we possess, by the acquirement and applica¬
tion of accurate knowledge, to lessen or altogether avert
those changes in the tissues which make old age miserable
and cause death at an earlier period than is absolutely
necessary. Mankind have no liking for old age, and yet,
even when old, retain their instinctive dread and aversion
for death. A distinguished physiologist (Longet) has
written : “ The old feel that their task in life is accom¬
plished and believe themselves to be universally grudged
the space they occupy in the world. This renders them
suspicious of all around them and jealous of the young.
Their craving for solitude and the uncertainty of their
tempers are due to the same cause. All old people are
not like this, of course. The hearts of some remain
youthful and beat strongly within their feeble frames. . . .
The years speed onward, every round of the clock
bringing the end nearer, and every hour adding a new
wrinkle to their faces, some fresh weakness and some new
regret. Their bodies become decrepit ; their back¬
bones, too weak to hold them upright, curve over, and
bend them downwards towards the earth.”

METCHNIKOFF ON OLD AGE

181

Metchnikoff inquires as to what precisely are the
changes which bring about this state of things. It is
a remarkable fact that, in spite of the misery of old
age, old people cling to life. The result of the ex¬
amination of a large number of cases is that, with the
rarest exceptions, even very old people desire to go on
living. Metchnikoff thinks that this is due partly to the
dread of death and “ the something after death ” which
is instilled from their earliest years into nearly all races
and populations, but that it is also partly due to a feeling
on the part of old people that something is still due to
them, that they have not had their fair share of happiness,
and that even in their latest years “ something will turn
up.” If old age could be made healthy, if the diseases
which break down healthy life, before its natural limit,
could be averted, and men could, without any sense of
misfortune or injustice, end their lives, without prolonged
decay and suffering, by “ natural death ” or mere
“ cessation of living,” as do the day-flies, that natural
end would be accompanied by an “ instinct for death ”
like the “ instinct for sleep ” at the end of a long and
happy day. Tokarski, a Russian writer, gives us the
words of an old woman who had lived a hundred years.
She is one of the rare cases known of glad acquiescence
in the natural termination of life. She said : “ If you
come to live as long as I have lived, you will understand
not only that it is possible not to fear death, but to feel
the same need for death as for sleep.”

Philosophy and religion have in vain endeavoured,
in all past ages of civilization, to fortify and to comfort
man in bearing the pains and disappointments of old age
and the inevitable death to which it leads — not desired,
not welcomed as release and rest, but usually feared, and
often not only feared but resented. The promise of a

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GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

happy future after death is what the Christian Church
has offered as compensation for the unmerited sufferings
of this life. On the other hand, Science has from its
earliest days been busy in the attempt to so regulate
human life as to avert the sufferings of men in this world
and to correct the “ disharmonies ” of human life — that
imperfect adjustment of the structure and living processes
of man to the natural conditions in which he finds him¬
self. Man lives in a state of warfare and struggle with
natural conditions to which he has been brought by the
sudden and unparalleled development of his intelligence,
and by his evasion of those methods of “ destruction of
the unfit ” by which Nature had maintained on the
earth’s surface a happy, healthy population of animals
and plants for countless ages before man’s emergence.
The parable of the tree of knowledge in the garden of
Eden is the recognition of this truth, and it is emphasized
in the words of a great Hebrew of ancient days : “In
much wisdom is much grief ; and he that increaseth
knowledge increaseth sorrow.” It is the business of
science to take men beyond this phase of imperfect
knowledge. Much knowledge leads, and has led, to
much grief, but greater knowledge — greater far than the
old writer dreamed of — will, we can clearly see, destroy
sorrow and bring man to ever-growing happiness — and
is even now doing so ! Metchnikoff declares — and in my
judgment he is right — that full and complete knowledge
of the causes of decay in old age can be arrived at (though
it will take many generations to obtain it), and that such
knowledge will enable man deliberately to prevent that
decay, so that the ideal of human life shall be realized,
namely, the completion by all men of the normal cycle
of healthy life, rounded off by natural death as by a sleep.
Our object and our expectation should not be to extend
the term of human life beyond its present natural limit,

METCHNIKOFF ON OLD AGE

183

which appears to be about ioo years, but to make it the
regular and easy thing for every one to reach that age
and to be healthy and useful (since the experience and
wisdom of the old is valuable) until the last.

What, then, are the obstacles to this general extension
of life to the end of a healthy (and therefore happy)
second half-century ? They are, firstly, the wearing out
of the teeth ; and, secondly, the hardening of the arteries
and changes similar to that process. The higher animals
— the hairy warm-blooded quadrupeds — which have
survived the dangers of youth and reached maturity —
come, as a rule, to their death by the wearing out of their
teeth. Wolves, lions, tigers, bears, and cats, in wild
nature, wear down and lose their teeth. When toothless
they cannot catch their prey nor protect themselves in
competition with their fellows. They become enfeebled
by insufficiency of food, and die from consequent disease
or from the attacks of their younger rivals. The same
is true of herbivorous animals — horses, bovines, sheep,
and deer. Their teeth wear out. The same is true of the
apes, and was true of primitive man. But at an early
period of his development man learnt to select, to prepare,
and to soften food, so that the failure of his teeth was not
so serious a loss to him as to other animals. Later he
provided himself in old age with artificial teeth, and so
the loss of his natural teeth ceased to be a cause of
death.

But those serious changes which are exhibited in their
most obvious form in the hardening of the arteries in
old age still remain to be discussed. The various living
cells and the tissues which they build up in the human
body are divided by Metchnikoff into (a) the less delicate
or more resistant and permanent tissues, and ( b ) the more

184

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

special delicate tissues which he terms the “ nobler.”
The latter are, in the first place, the immensely important
nerve-cells of the brain and spinal cord, which are never
multiplied in adult life nor replaced when injured or
destroyed. Further, we have in this category the gland-
cells, such as those of the kidney and liver, and the con¬
tractile muscular cells, which, though capable of repair
and new growth, are yet delicate and highly sensitive
to unhealthy chemical conditions (poisons). The per¬
manent, resistant, and exuberant tissues (which Metch-
nikoff points to as the “ baser ” or “ non-noble ”) are
the fibrous skeleton-making or enveloping tissues which
are spread everywhere through the body as a wonderfully
subdivided penetrating framework in all the minutest,
as well as the largest, parts or architectural units of our
structure. With them, and originating from them, are
found the motile, often floating, protoplasmic “ eater-
cells ” or “ phagocytes ” (see Chapter VI), which devour
(as does the unicellular animalcule, the amoeba) all
intrusive bacteria, and all the dead or enfeebled bits of
the complex animal body. The hardening of arteries,
the destruction of kidney-cells and brain-cells, which
goes on in old people, is due to the relatively too great
activity of this fibre-forming tissue, and of the “ eater-
cells,” which destroy and devour the nobler cells, and fill
up their place by base fibrous, or (as it is called) “ con¬
nective ” tissue — mere “packing,” devoid of the special
qualities of the tissues which it replaces. Thus the elastic
resilient arteries become hardened, the great glands
(such asT kidney and liver) largely replaced by inert
“ stuffing,” and the brain similarly deteriorated. Even
the loss of colour in the hair is shown by Metchnikoff
to be due to “ eater-cells,” which in old age enter the
individual hairs and eat up, engulf, and dissolve the
pigment granules.

METCHNIKOFF ON OLD AGE

185

The problem, therefore, is how to arrest this relatively
excessive activity of the connective tissue and eater-cells.
And to arrive at an answer to this question we must find
out what it is which leads to their increased and destruc¬
tive activity, and then endeavour to find a means of re¬
moving that cause ; or, on the other hand, of increasing
the resistance and relative strength of the nobler tissue-
cells. This is necessarily a long and elaborate inquiry.
But the following facts are established. The enfeeble-
ment of the nobler contractile cells of the walls of arteries,
and their replacement by “ stuffing,” as well as the similar
changes in the brain and in the great glands are favoured
by certain poisons which man habitually takes into his
body. The first is universally recognized to be alcohol ;
the second is the poison of “ syphilis,” that insidious
infectious disease which is so widely spread and is caused
by the excessively minute microbe discovered by Schaudin
and named by him, Treponema pallidum ; the third is
the poison absorbed from the mass of putrefying un¬
absorbed food which fills the large intestine of man. The
action of these three poisons is to paralyse and weaken
the nobler tissue-cells. They are more or less successfully
resisted by the younger and more vigorous section of the
human population ; but their efforts accumulate. After
middle age the results of their injurious work become more
and more obvious and increased in actual amount and
proportion, producing the enfeeblement and decay which
we associate with old age.

The indulgence in alcoholic drinks is a cause
which we can at once remove or reduce to a minimum.
The widespread disease syphilis we can, easily and
readily, extirpate, if and when Governments decide
so to do. It has been shown that 45 per cent or nearly
half the deaths from arterial sclerosis or hardening of

186

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

the arteries are due to these two causes — alcoholism and
syphilis. Rheumatism and gout only play a small part
in setting up hardening of the arteries. It is held to be
highly probable that the poisons fabricated by the mass
of microbes congregated in the human intestine — that
part of it called the large intestine — are responsible
for the rest of the arterial hardening, which (do not
let us forget) is the characteristic feature of senile
decay. We have now to see how this cause can be
removed.

We have seen that the too great indulgence in alcohol
together with a widespread infectious disease are the chief
causes (in youth and middle age) of that poisoning of the
nobler tissues which results in the hardening of the arteries
and the replacement of important “nobler” tissues by
fibrous packing or connective tissue, and thus to that
decay and enfeeblement which marks the old age of man.
These causes are under our control. A third cause,
according to Metchnikoff, is the poisoning of the tissues
by products manufactured by microbes in the large
intestine and absorbed into the blood. The grounds for
this conclusion and the ways in which this cause of senile
decay may be avoided remain for consideration.

An old and accepted saying is : “A man is as old as
his arteries.” It points to the fact not only that the
hardening of the walls of the arteries is itself destructive
of health and dangerous to life, but that similar changes
in other parts besides the walls of the arteries are going
on at the same time. If we could prevent the poisoning
of the body by the products of intestinal microbes, in
addition to avoiding excess in the use of alcohol and
infection by the Treponema microbe — two precautions
which are assuredly within our power — we should in all

METCHNIKOFF ON OLD AGE

187

probability be able to ensure for mankind a healthy and
happy old age.

The human intestine contains an enormous quantity
of bacteria which, according to the researches of the
eminent biologist, Strassburger, increase at the rate of
128 million millions a day. That gives some indication
of the gigantic number present. They are not all of one
kind, but comprise an enormous variety, some of which
are more abundant than others. One-third part of the
human excreta consists of these bacteria ! There are
but few, relatively, in the active digesting portion of the
alimentary canal. By far the greater number are lodged
in the terminal or lower part of the intestine, which is
called the “ large intestine ” or “ colon,” and is in man
without action as a digestive organ. This is a very
wide but short portion of the intestine, as broad as three
fingers, and only from 5 to 6 feet in length. It is disposed
as an ascending, a transverse, and a descending portion,
the last ending in the rectum and the vent. The food,
before it reaches the “ large intestine,” has passed
through the oesophagus 10 inches long, the stomach — a
pear-shaped sac holding 5 pints and about 10 inches
long — and the small intestine, which is from 25 to 30 feet
long. This part of the intestine is called “ small ”
because it is a narrow tube little more than an inch broad,
disposed or packed within the abdomen in undulating
coils and convolutions. It joins the much wider but
short “ large intestine ” just within the right edge of the
bony hip or pelvic basin. Here is situated, at the com¬
mencement of the large intestine, the curious little sac,
“ the caecum,” with its wormlike blind process — the
“ vermiform appendix ” — which so often becomes dis¬
eased and has to be removed by the surgeon. The whole
of the digestive process of man takes place in the stomach

188

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

and in the 25 feet of small intestine ; none in the caecum
nor in the large intestine. The caecum, or blind sac, and
the 6 feet of large intestine are quite useless. No diges¬
tion goes on in them ; but the remains of the food passing
into them putrefy under the action of the enormous
population of bacteria.

The products of the putrefaction produced by some
(though not all) of the kinds of bacteria usually present
in man’s large intestine are definite poisons. These
poisons (phenol and indol) have been identified by
physiological chemists and followed after their absorption
into the blood. They are eventually passed out of the
body by the kidneys. In healthy, vigorous people they
are not produced in sufficient quantity to do much harm.
But it is owing to their production that constipation has
such injurious results, and in all persons of sedentary
habits, or those in whom the intestine is weakened and
does not rapidly empty itself, very serious disturbances —
headache, lassitude, and even poisoning of the brain
(mania) — are the consequence of their formation. There
seems to be sufficient experimental ground for concluding
that these poisons when absorbed act upon the “ nobler ”
tissues so as to enfeeble them and stimulate the eater-
cells to activity and to the destruction of the nobler cells
and their replacement by useless, inert, fibrous, con¬
nective tissues.1

Here, then, we find present in man a wide, capacious
tract of intestine which is not only of no use to him, but
a seat of positive and serious danger. How has this
come about ? In flesh-eating animals this last portion
of intestine — the so-called large intestine or “ colon ” —

1 It is nevertheless true that further observation and experiment are
needed in order to establish this conclusion with certainty.

METCHNIKOFF ON OLD AGE

189

is absent. Dogs, cats, lions, and such animals have not
got it. It is of no use in the digestion of animal food
(flesh, etc.). But in the grass-eating, leaf-eating, and
fruit-eating animals — cattle, sheep, horses, rabbits, many
monkeys — the colon and caecum, constituting the “ large
intestine,” are of full size, and assist in digestion. The
woody material (cellulose) present in vegetable food is
acted upon by the bacteria which accumulate in the large
intestine of herbivorous animals, and this substance,
which cannot be digested by the juices of the stomach
and small intestine, is altered or “ fermented ” by the
bacteria in such a way as to produce not poisons, but
valuable nutritive material, which is absorbed by the
animal and nourishes it. An interesting suggestion as to
the further advantage to herbivorous animals of the
distended capacious large intestine is put forward by
Metchnikoff. These animals have to run for their lives
when pursued by carnivorous enemies. The large
intestine enables them to retain their partly digested food
for a longer time than can an animal which has no large
intestine. They are not delayed in their flight by stop¬
ping to empty the bowel, and, moreover, they are able to
continue the digestion of the woody vegetable materials
retained in them when they have reached a position of
safety and repose. Man, it seems, has inherited his
large intestine from vegetarian ancestors even more
remote than the apes, and though he has changed his
habits as to food and has benefited by giving up woody
fibre and by feeding on the succulent parts of plants and
the prepared flesh of animals, yet the desirable change in
his bodily structure corresponding to his change of food
has not followed.

The large intestine is one of the many instances of
“ disharmony ” between the more recently acquired

190

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

habits or mode of life of an organism and its ancient
inherited structure, whether this be structure of other
organs or of the brain and nervous system exhibited in
instincts. It hasTong been recognized that in man there
are many such delays (for so we may consider them) in
the adjustment of this or that part of his mechanism to
the new conditions to which, on the whole, he has become
successfully adapted so as to flourish and spread over
the whole surface of the world. The useless “ wisdom
teeth ” — clearly on the way to disappear altogether — are
an instance. They are not only useless, but are seats
of disease, sometimes causing death. The gaps in the
fibrous wall of the abdomen which were harmless in man’s
four-footed ancestors, and even in arboreal apes, are a
danger to man now that he has taken to the upright pose
in walking and running. They permit in the upright,
but not in the more horizontal, attitude the painful and
dangerous extrusions of loops of intestine through the
abdominal wall known as “ hernia.” This is a “ dis¬
harmony,” a want of adaptation of man’s structure in
one particular respect to the upright carriage, although
great and important adaptations to it in very many other
respects (such as the structure of the leg and the foot,
vertebral column, balance of the head, etc.) have been
perfected.

Can man then step in and himself “ artificially ”
bring about the disappearance of the “ disharmony ”
of his intestinal structure, so as to avoid poisoning
himself by putrefactive bacteria ? He has already in
various ways undertaken a certain amount of such
carving and remodelling of his own structure. The
dwindled caecum and its wormlike termination are
naturally, but slowly, on their way to disappearance.
In the horse and the rabbit they are of twenty times the

METCHNIKOFF ON OLD AGE

191

size, relatively to the rest of the body, which they present
in man. Surgeons now remove from man the dwindled
piece which is the most dangerous on account of its
liability to ulceration and abscess, namely, the wormlike
appendix. Not only that, but (in, it is true, a much
smaller number of cases) the whole of the large intestine
has in recent years been removed from patients because
its diseased state had led to excessive absorption of putre¬
factive poison from its contents. A considerable number
of persons are alive and well who have undergone this
operation, and are all the better for having no large in¬
testine ! Though, as Metchnikoff says, we cannot expect,
in spite of the progress of surgery, to see in our time the
large intestine removed by operation as a usual thing,
yet perhaps, in the distant future, such a proceeding will
become the rule.

Failing this remedy, there remain to us two pro¬
cedures in order to preserve humanity against the senile
decay due to the poisons produced by certain putrefac¬
tions of the contents of the large intestine. The first is
to control the intestinal flora — the flora of bacteria — so
as to exclude from the large intestine the poison-producing
kind, which gets “ sown ” or carried into it inevitably
with the raw food we swallow ; the second is to inject into
the blood and tissues “ serums ” prepared, as we now can
see our way to prepare them, so that they shall have the
property either of strengthening and encouraging the
resistance of the nobler tissue-cells, those of brain,
glands, and muscles, or, on the other hand, have the
property of holding in check the phagocytes and the fibre¬
forming tissues so as to restrain the undesirable invasion
and multiplication by them in highly developed organs.

The problem of controlling our intestinal “ gardens,”

192

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

and cultivating there what bacteria we choose, and
destroying or weeding out those we discover to be
harmful, has advanced further towards solution than
has the problem of preparing the serums suggested.
A very simple fact in regard to the bacteria comes to our
aid. It is this. Some bacteria will grow only in an
alkaline liquid, other kinds will only grow in an acid
liquid. A slight predominance of alkaline or acid is
sufficient. The bacterium which produces the “ phenol-
indol ” poisons in the large intestine absolutely requires
slightly alkaline surroundings. You have only to make
the contents of the large intestine somewhat acid, and the
poisonous “ weed ” is stopped, never again to flourish so
long as the acid condition is maintained. It might be
supposed that this end could be attained by the simple
swallowing of acid fluids. But that is not so. It is not
possible (without injury) to take sufficient quantities of
acid to keep the large intestine’s contents acid. Fortun¬
ately, there is a microbe — the lactic bacillus — which can,
and does, grow in the large intestine (when encouraged
to do so), and produces from sugar a very efficient acid,
called “ lactic acid.” All we have to do then is to swallow
the lactic bacillus and also suitable sugar in such quan¬
tity that they shall pass through all the thirty feet of the
alimentary canal, and arrive in the large intestine, there
to grow and suppress, by the production of acid, the acid-
hating poisonous bacteria. Many races of men have —
without consciously aiming at the repression of poison-
producing bacteria — for ages carried out this procedure,
feeding largely on “ sour milk,” which is milk turned acid
by the lactic bacillus, which lives and swarms in the
soured liquid. It has been found that there is no diffi¬
culty in taking every day such a quantity of “ sour milk ”
and appropriate sugar as shall ensure the establishment of
the acid-producing “ lactic ” bacillus in the large intestine

METCHNIKOFF ON OLD AGE

193

of man. A vast number of persons in Europe and
America, especially those who were suffering' from the
more obvious effects of the absorption of poison from the
large intestine — have of late years adopted this “ regime ”
with complete success. It has been found, definitely and
precisely by chemical analysis, that persons who were
passing the phenol-indol poisons through the kidney
(having absorbed them from the large intestine), so
soon as their large intestines become “ planted ” with the
lactic organism, cease to absorb those poisons and to
evacuate them through the kidneys. The poisons are
no longer produced. The problem of cultivating one’s
own bacterial garden in the large intestine seems certainly
to have been solved, and a definite step taken towards
freeing our tissues of the poisons due to alkaline putre¬
faction in the large intestine, which are one of the chief
causes of “ senile decay.”

As to the injection into the human body of serums
designed to strengthen the higher or nobler elements of
the organism and to weaken the aggressive capacity of
the phagocytes or eater-cells, this method is suggested
by Metchnikoff not as an actual but as a possible solution
of the problem, worthy of consideration. Serums
capable of poisoning particular kinds of cells have been
prepared (by Dr. Bordet, of the Pasteur Institute) by
taking samples of any one kind of cell — say, those of the
liver or the kidney or the red blood corpuscles — from one
species of animal A and injecting them alive and fresh
into the blood vessels of another species of animal B.
After several injections spread over some days, the blood
serum of the animal operated on (B) becomes destructive
or poisonous to the particular kind of cells taken from the
animal (A). And this serum can now be injected into
a living animal of the first species (A). It has been found

194

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

that such serums injected in large quantities into the
animal species A destroy the kind of cells used in their
preparation, but if injected in smaller quantities actually
strengthen them. The action is analogous to that of
certain medicinal poisons which kill in large doses but in
weak doses improve or strengthen the action of certain
tissues. Thus it seems quite possible to prepare a serum
which, if injected into the human body, should strengthen
a given kind of nobler or higher tissue, and another
serum which should, when similarly used, poison and
weaken the phagocytes and the fibre-forming invading
worthless tissues.

It is, it seems to me, desirable thus briefly to place
before the reader what are the possible lines of inquiry and
experiment which present themselves to the investigator
as likely to place in our hands the means of removing
the worst features of the series of changes which we call
“ senile decay.” We have lived to see the old alchemists’
dream of the transmutation of elements realized by the
discovery of radium. It is not impossible that a genera¬
tion or two later than ours may witness the discovery of
something not very unlike the “ elixir vitae,” though not
altogether as powerful as that mythical preparation was
expected to be by those who in past ages sought for it.
The attitude of modern science towards the future possi¬
bility of amelioratin f old age and lengthening the healthy
normal life of man is one of hope based on results already
achieved. But as to the future increase of man’s tenure
of life to a term beyond ,100 years we have no positive
indication.

Perhaps it is as well to note in conclusion that it is
universally agreed that those who would enjoy a happy
and prolonged old age must eat less, drink less, and smoke

METCHNIKOFF ON OLD AGE

195

less, work less, and play less, than they did in the prime
of life. There must be a real and willing reduction in
all these quantities in proportion to the diminished vigour
of the individual. He must also worry less and hurry less
than was his habit, and he must never run the risk of
doing a harmful thing, for his chance of escaping
without permanent injury is no longer so good as it was !

CHAPTER XXII

GIANTS

IT is a reasonable suggestion that there is a similarity
between the limitation in the quality of the living
matter of many plants and animals which sets a term
to their endurance or possible age, and that limitation
which results in a cessation of growth in many kinds of
organisms after a certain size has been attained. We
recognize a certain size as that which is characteristic of
man and of various species of wild animals, and we are
accustomed to a certain small variation in that size, so
that individuals are somewhat “ shorter ” or “ taller.”
But any large divergence from the characteristic height
(amounting in the case of man to a third more or less
than the average or normal height) we regard as alto¬
gether exceptional, and speak of the abnormally tall
individuals as “ giants,” and the abnormally short as
“ dwarfs.” It is abundantly clear that the lease of life
or potential longevity is not greater in giants nor less in
dwarfs than in other men. Whilst the two things are
independent of one another, it is yet the fact that there is
both in relation to longevity and to stature, an innate
limitation in very many species of animals as well as men.
It is a legitimate supposition that the innate lease of life
varies in individuals owing to an initial quality of the
living material of the individual in much the same way as
does the innate capacity for growth to a normal size or

GIANTS

197

to a size less or greater than what is normal or usual in the
species. And so there may be rare individuals born with
exceptional innate longevity as there are rare individuals
born with exceptional innate growth-power. Many
cases have been recorded of human beings who have
exhibited senile decay and died of it before attaining
twenty years of age.

Perhaps all human beings who reach ioo years of
age should be regarded as exceptional individuals, like
giants. There do not appear to be many known in¬
stances of a giant exceeding the average stature of man
by more than a half of the normal measurement. Frede¬
rick the Great’s Scotch giant measured 8 ft. 3 in. in
height. Patrick Cotier, an Irishman, who died at Clifton
(Bristol) in 1802, was 8 ft. 7 in. high. The Irish giant,
“ O’Brien ” (Charles Byrne), whose skeleton is preserved
in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, was
8 ft. 4 in. in height. Chang or Chang-woo-goo, the
Chinese giant, whom I saw several times in London in
1880, was 8 ft. 2 in. high, and a perfectly well-propor¬
tioned, good-looking man of charming manners. All
these, however, were exceeded by Winkelmaier, an
Austrian, who was exhibited in London in 1887, and
was 8 ft. 9 in. in height. He, again, was exceeded by
Machnow, a Russian, born at Charkow, whom I saw
in Paris in 1905. He stood 9 ft. 3 in., and weighed
25 st. 10 lb. Machnow is the tallest giant of whom we
have trustworthy record.

Very usually giants and dwarfs do not present the
proportions of ordinary individuals magnified or dim¬
inished. A giant’s head is smaller and a dwarf’s head
is larger than would be that of an average man magnified
or diminished. Chang was an exception to this rule,

198

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

and presented a near approach to the usual proportions
of head, body, and limbs. Not infrequently great height
is due to excessive length of the legs, the rest of the body
not being of unusual size. And very frequently giants
(especially those rare cases approaching or exceeding
8 ft. in height) are weak and unhealthy and die young.
The record, on the other hand, of dwarfs who have
reached adult age and been known as “ celebrities ”
does not lead to the supposition that they are short¬
lived. Two feet in height appears to be about the limit
of minuteness recorded for a healthy dwarf, and is very
rare. Three feet is a good record for an adult dwarf.
Charles Stratton, who exhibited himself under the name
of “ General Tom Thumb ” from 1844 onwards, was
2 ft. 7 in. high when 25 years old. He took £ 600 in the
first week of his appearance on exhibition in London,
whilst Haydon, the painter, who exhibited his picture,
“ The Banishment of Aristides,” in the same building,
drew but £7, 13s. The artist committed suicide. The
dwarf married a diminutive lady in 1863, and died in
comfortable retirement in 1883.

It is a noteworthy fact that both giants and dwarfs
are the offspring of parents of normal height. On the
other hand, there is a very general belief that longevity
— that is, an abnormally long lease of life — runs in
families. It is an example of the difficulty which is
found in arriving at a well-founded conclusion in so
many matters where inheritance of qualities or capacities
is in question, that it is still doubtful whether the actual
quality of potential long life is one which is transmitted
from parents to offspring. The habits of life which we
know are likely to favour long life are, we also know,
likely to be transmitted, and, further, to be handed on by
tradition and training. Hence it is difficult in any family

GIANTS

199

to attribute the attainment of an age exceeding 80 or go
years on the part of many of its members to an inherent
potential longevity inherited by all or most of the
members of the family, rather than to the inheritance
of traditions and character affecting the conduct of life
and leading to avoidance of disease, and to moderation
in eating, drinking, and those abuses of strength which
shorten the lives of most men. On the other hand, there
is no reason to doubt that the breeder of this or that kind
of animal could produce a long-lived or a short-lived
strain or race by the usual method of selection.

Giants have been the subject of exaggerated tradi¬
tion and myth in early times, and wonderful stories of
prehistoric men 15 feet and 20 feet high have been
accepted even as late as a century ago, just as the tradi¬
tion has been accepted of men living to be several hundred
years old in those remote days, of which we have no
contemporary records. The Greeks told of the Cyclopes
and wild tribes of giants. “ Giant legends ” of the kind
are common in Europe and Asia. The barbaric tribes
who resisted the incursions of a more civilized race were
described as big and stupid giants, and were exagger¬
ated into monsters in the legends of their conquerors.
Mere pictures and effigies of gigantic size have un¬
doubtedly given rise to legends of the existence of giants.
The misunderstanding of works of art has, in the early
days of European civilization, been a most fertile source
of legends of monsters and prodigies of all kinds. In
mediaeval times nearly every great city in Europe pos¬
sessed one or more gigantic figures (constructed of wicker¬
work or light material of the kind), which were carried
in procession on days of festival, and were supposed
to represent tutelary deities or mythical personages.
Legend grew up around these purely “ decorative ”

200

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

emblems ; Gog and Magog are still preserved in the
City of London, and the effigy of a similar giant is to be
seen in the museum at Salisbury.

But, apart from these incitements to develop legends
of giants, we have the finding in the ground of huge bones
and teeth — those of the mammoth or Arctic elephant —
which have been at different times and in various towns
of England and Europe believed to be the bones and
teeth of gigantic men. The giants in the arms of the
cities of Basle and of Lucerne apparently owe their
origin to the finding of such bones, and to the report of
the physician, Felix Plater, who examined some bones dug
up in the year 1577 in Switzerland, and declared them to
be those of a human giant 19 feet high. Such bones
were considered even in the last century as genuine
relics of the giant men who once inhabited the earth.
Bones of whales brought home by sailormen, as well as
those of fossil mammoths, still do duty in historic castles
for the remains of dragon-like monsters or gigantic men.

The mere exaggeration of one who tells the story of
the strange sights he has met with during his travels in
remote lands is responsible for a large part of the belief
in races of giants. The ancient Arabian voyagers
visited Madagascar, and saw the eggs and bones of the
big extinct bird, the Aipyornis, of which the museums of
London and Paris contain many specimens. Possibly
they may even have seen the living birds. The egg of the
Aipyornis is certainly big — much bigger than that of an
ostrich, about three times its length and breadth. But
such is the human habit of exaggeration that in the story
of Sindbad the Sailor, told in the wonderful “ Thousand
Nights and the One Night,” the egg has become as big
as the dome of a mosque, and the bird is represented as

GIANTS

201

easily carrying Sindbad into the Valley of Diamonds.
In the early Spanish accounts of Patagonia (Pigafetta’s
“ Voyage Round the World ”) the inhabitants are
represented as being of such a monstrous size that the
heads of the Spanish sailors barely reached to their
waists ! This tradition of the gigantic size of the Pata¬
gonians is still current. I was brought up on it myself.
In reality, they are merely a fine race, of an average height
of 5 ft. II in., identical with that of the inhabitants of
many districts in the north of Great Britain. It is prob¬
able that wherever early man, on his migrations, en¬
countered and fought with a tall race he exaggerated the
size of his opponents and gradually magnified them to
the size of giants. Or, to put it more precisely, the man
who heard the first account and related it to a later genera¬
tion added a bit to the stature of the big race, and that
generation, in relating the story to the next, added a little
more, and so on, as in the story of the three black crows.
That story, though no doubt familiar to most of my
readers, is too instructive — as an example of the manu¬
facture of a legend by inaccurate repetition of hearsay
evidence — to be passed over when an opportunity occurs
for its quotation. Mr. X., a resident in a remote village,
is informed by a neighbour, Mrs. Smith, that a wonderful
thing has occurred in their midst — in fact, old Mrs.
Jones has vomited three black crows, which were no
sooner seen than they spread their wings and flew away.
Mrs. Smith states that she did not see the birds herself,
but was fully informed in regard to the occurrence by
that trustworthy party, Mrs. Brown. Mr. X. accordingly
calls on Mrs. Brown and asks for her version of the
occurrence. She declares that she had not stated that
three black crows were ejected by old Mrs. Jones, but only
one, and that she was assured of this by Mrs. Robinson,
who saw the bird. Accordingly Mr. X. hunts up Mrs.

202

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

Robinson and inquires of her as to this wonderful bird.
Mrs. Robinson is much astonished and annoyed. She
declares that what she said was that old Mrs. Jones had
vomited “ something as black as a crow,” and there Mr.
X. leaves the matter, satisfied with having traced a legend
to its actual basis of fact. Many marvellous legends,
popularly accepted as true, have originated in an equally
crude perversion of a statement of a not very unusual
occurrence, as it has passed from the original truthful
narrator through a series of wonder-loving storytellers.

The remains of extinct races of men which have
been dug up furnish no evidence of the former existence
of “ giants,” nor does any race of men larger than that
inhabiting the northern parts of Great Britain exist at the
present day. On the other hand, it is the fact that a
“ pygmy race ” of men is found in tropical Africa and
parts of Southern Asia. They range from about 4 feet
to about 4| feet in height. Wild species of animals have
usually a definite size characteristic of the species, and
show but a small range of variation in measurement,
though sometimes a “ local race,” of larger or smaller size
than that which is usual, is observed. The puma (Felis
concolor) is one of the most variable in size among the
larger wild animals. Many reptiles and fish (as well as
many of the lower aquatic invertebrate animals) appear to
have no definite limit of growth, but to continue to in¬
crease in bulk as long as they live. Hence exceptionally
large individuals ( e.g . of crocodiles, snakes, pike, lobsters,
whelks, and mussels) are occasionally found. But
among the warm-blooded vertebrates — the mammals and
birds — though very large species and very small species
of the same genus are not uncommon (such as the pygmy
hippopotamus of Liberia and the full-sized species of the
Nile and other African rivers, the large and small species

GIANTS

208

of true deer, of bovines, of cats, etc.), yet giants and dwarfs
within the ranks of a single species, such as we know in
the case of man, are not found except in domesticated
races. Natural selection sternly eliminates all aberra¬
tions in size, whether giants or dwarfs.

CHAPTER XXIII

MORPHOLOGY AND MONSTERS

WHEN I was director of the Natural History
Museum, I frequently received letters about four¬
legged chicks, double-headed lambs, and cyclo-
pian (one-eyed) pigs, often accompanied by specimens.
One I remember was addressed to “ The Keeper of the
Freaks, South Kensington,” and having been, very natur¬
ally, delivered first of all at the neighbouring Art Museum
(now the Victoria and Albert Museum) was passed on
with something like indignant repudiation to me at the
Natural History Museum. I was for some years kept in
touch with “ the freaks ” by letters sent to the office of
“ The Daily Telegraph,” and will therefore say a few
words here about these curious natural productions.

In order that my readers may appreciate the interest
and significance of these “ monsters,” it is necessary to
give a brief sketch of a very difficult subject, which we
may call the “ Laws of Form,” studied by zoologists and
botanists under the name “ Morphology,” the name
given to it by the great German Goethe who was poet,
naturalist, and philosopher. I am all the more anxious to
say a few words on this subject, since it is that which it
has been my greatest pleasure, as well as my chief business
to study and to teach, during the best part of my life.

If we look at the lifeless material of which the surface

204

MORPHOLOGY AND MONSTERS

205

and crust of the earth — as well as its interior — is com¬
posed, we find that n the absence of the hand of man
and of the living bodies of plants and animals, the masses
of material which project here and there on the general
surface are very irregular, either angular or rounded,
but not symmetrical (that is with opposite sides alike),
nor capable of being grouped into various classes of like
shapes. All, in fact, differ so much from one another,
that we must conclude that their shapes are due, not to
intrinsic laws or rules requiring certain known patterns
of shape to be assumed by this rough material, but to
the conflicting action of a number of external forces.
Thus, we find water wearing down the hard material,
excavating valleys, leaving irregular mountains and
pinnacles, spreading flats of gravel and mud, with broken
rock sometimes interspersed, over the valleys. We find
wind blowing and piling up sand, and as “ sand-blast ”
cutting and polishing here and there. We find earth¬
quakes shattering the rocks and opening irregular chasms
in the solid ground. We find the sea irregularly wearing
away the land at one place and piling up “ beach ” at
another, so as to give irregular outlines to our coasts.
We see the glaciers of the mountain-sides grinding and
polishing, and the ice as it forms splitting the rocks into
irregular shapes. Clearly all these ceaseless changes are
due to law-abiding necessary causes, but the result of
their operation is not to produce any recognizable shapes
of definite pattern, excepting so far as this is true of the
vaguely tree-like shape of the furrows or cuttings, caused
by the convergence of rivulets to form streams and streams
to form rivers ; a shape which may be studied in the
minute rivulets formed by the draining water on the sands
uncovered by the sea at low tide.

Even when we come to look at the small bits of this

206

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

mineral surface of the earth we find as a rule that they
are irregular, of varied shapes and sizes, angular rock
fragments or water-worn rounded pebbles and grains of
endless variety and individual form. Soon, however, a
closer examination will reveal here and there more or
less abundantly in sands and gravels and rock fragments
those beautiful shapes which are called crystals, usually
of minute size, but sometimes an inch, or even a foot,
in length. “ Crystals ” are solid “ geometrical ” figures
bounded by flat surfaces and straight lines. They are
cubes, octahedra (eight-faced blocks), dodecahedra
(twelve-faced blocks), pyramids, six-sided, and four¬
sided columns and needles, and other shapes. Some are
upright, like a cube or an oblong block with vertical
sides ; others have their sides set obliquely or slantwise ;
but all are extremely regular, sharply “ cut,” as it were,
and are classified into a perfectly definite limited series of
primary shapes or patterns, some of which I have just
mentioned. They are sometimes white and opaque,
sometimes coloured, sometimes transparent and colour¬
less, sometimes beautifully tinted. Rock-crystal,
amethyst, common salt, selenite, iceland-spar, emerald,
topaz, garnet, diamond, fluor-spar, felspar, pyrites,
galena (lead ore) are a few examples of “ crystals ”
which are found in the crust of the earth. They have
been produced, some in the molten rocks of igneous
origin, some in sedimentary rocks deposited by water.
A most important fact is that they are “ pure ” chemical
compounds, not mixtures. A lump of mud is an impure
mixture of a great number of particles of many different
chemical compounds, which can be separated from one
another by rubbing the mud up in water, and letting the
particles separate and subside, whilst a gentle stream is
set up in the water, which carries some of the varied
particles farther than others.

MORPHOLOGY AND MONSTERS

207

A crystal (though sometimes it “ includes ” impurities
and a large quantity of water, called “ water of crystal¬
lization ”) is either a pure “ element,” such as carbon,
sulphur, copper, gold ; or it is a single chemical com¬
pound, such as chloride of sodium (common salt), or
fluoride of calcium (fluor-spar), or sulphide of lead
(galena), or some other of a vast series of possible
compounds.

I must for a moment stop to say what we mean by
“ a chemical compound.” Chemists have discovered,
in the course of centuries of heating and dissolving, and
otherwise “ torturing ” the substance of things, that they
can extract from natural bodies about eighty substances
— some abundant, some very rare — which, do what you
will to them, cannot be broken up so as to yield con¬
stituent substances.1 They are the ultimate irreducible
constituents of matter on this earth, and are called “ the
elements ” (a curious word, signifying in Roman times
the letters of the alphabet, drawn each on a block of ivory,
such as children use in order to learn to spell). All
material things consist either of these elements in a pure
state, or of substances formed by combinations of the
elements, two or more, in definite and fixed numerical
proportion, according to weight. These definite com¬
binations are called “ chemical compounds,” or “ com¬
binations,” and are broadly distinguished from mere

1 I must qualify this statement by substituting “have not been’’
for "cannot be.” The discoveries of the last twenty-five years as to
Uranium, Thorium, Radium, and Helium, lead to the conclusion that
whilst the "elements " do as a rule defeat all attempts to break them
into constituent substances, yet some do "decompose” into con¬
stituent bodies, and that it is not improbable that such a breaking
down of elements into constituent bodies may be found to take place
in other initances ; and thus our notions as to the nature of what we
call " elements " may be greatly modified.

208

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

mixtures. In chemical combination the original pro¬
perties of the combining elements disappear, and quite
new properties are shown by the compound. Thus,
eight pounds of the gas oxygen chemically combine with
one pound of the gas hydrogen to form nine pounds
of water — and in that proportion only. Twenty-three
pounds of the soft, light metal sodium (which floats on
water), combine with 35^ pounds (neither more nor less)
of the pungent, poisonous, yellow-green gas chlorine — to
form the clear cube-shaped crystals of common salt — a
substance as different from its constituent elements as
it is possible to imagine. Such are “ chemical com¬
pounds ” — unions of two or more elements in absolutely
fixed proportions, resulting in the formation of bodies of
distinct properties, differing completely in cohesion,
in colour, transparency, hardness, and chemical activity
from the elements thus combined, which, nevertheless,
can by appropriate methods be extracted from the com¬
bination and restored to their original state !

Nearly every chemical compound has one shape of
crystal which is its specific shape and has no obvious
relation to the crystalline shape of its constituent elements.
The ultimate particles of the chemical compound have
this particular crystalline shape, and they may adhere to
one another only in sufficient number to form very minute
crystals, or in other circumstances they may keep on
joining one another and so build up single crystals of
the same shape but immensely bigger. Crystals are
formed most frequently when a chemical body which was
in solution in water (or in other liquid due to great heat)
ceases to be “ dissolved ” owing to the “ drying up ”
(escape as a vapour) of the water or the cessation of the
great heat. Crystals are formed when, owing to these
and other causes, the crystalline particles of a chemically

MORPHOLOGY AND MONSTERS

209

pure substance become separated from surrounding
matter. They attract and adhere to one another, and
form either a mass of small crystals or a group of con¬
joined crystals or one big crystal. The shape of the
crystals depends on the shape of the ultimate crystalline
particles (so small as to be invisible), which fit to each
other in series, side by side, all facing the same way. In
common salt the ultimate crystalline particles are cubes.
You can see by looking at the table salt in a salt-cellar
with a lens that it consists of small cubic crystals. But
the best way is to make a strong solution of the salt
in water and to let it “ evaporate.” If you hasten the
evaporation by heat you will get only small cubes, but if
you let it go on for a few days without artificial heat and
put some threads of cotton or wool into the brine for the
crystals to stick to, you can get quite large cubes as big
as a pea. Common alum, which is a combination of
sulphur, oxygen, and the metals aluminium and potas¬
sium, crystallizes in double four-sided pyramids called
octahedra (eight-faced). By allowing it to crystallize
slowly from its solution in water very large individual
crystals as big as a man’s fist may be obtained. When
quite pure they are colourless, but minute quantities of
iron when present in the liquid give them a pale red tint,
and pale green, purple and blue crystals may be formed
owing to the presence of traces of chromium, manganese,
or copper. It is by such impurities that crystalline gems
acquire their colour, both diamond and sapphire or ruby
being colourless when pure, but occurring also with blue,
red, and green colour. Sulphur melted in a crucible
crystallizes as delicate needles when allowed to cool.
Crystals of endless varieties of chemical compounds occur
in natural rocks, and even the red oxygen-carrying sub¬
stance of our blood — a definite chemical compound of
carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and iron — can be
M

210

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

induced to crystallize in the form of four-faced pyramids
and of plates and needles having a four-sided skewed or
oblique outline (see page 54). Here, then, we discover
in these natural products called “ crystals ” a law of
form, an inherent symmetrical shaping of solid material,
which invariably shows itself in certain chemical com¬
pounds. Each has a particular shape of which the
angles can be measured, being characteristic of or
essentially belonging to that chemical compound. The
number of possible kinds of crystalline shapes is limited ;
whilst there are many thousand different chemical
combinations. Consequently many of the latter have
very nearly or quite identical crystalline form.

What is the cause of this form ? The form is a
“ property ” of the ultimate structural particles de¬
pendent on and varying with their chemical nature. We
can only speak of it as “ crystallization ” or “ crystal
formation,” and we really cannot get any further in the
way of stating how or why it occurs. There are solid
bodies, such as glass, glue, gum, and pitch, the particles
of which do not arrange themselves as crystals. When
we break them, or otherwise examine into their “ struc¬
ture,” we find that it is equal throughout. They do not
break into definite angular-shaped figures nor show
regular planes of strain and structure pervading every
minutest part of the mass. They are called “ amor¬
phous,” that is, without inherent deeply seated shape or
form in their substance. Their particles exhibit simple
cohesion. Cohesion is the name given to what is called
“ a molecular force ” — the “ attraction ” exhibited by
the particles of a solid body for one another. Rigidity,
hardness, brittleness, malleability, are names for variations
in its intensity. It resembles that universal attraction
called “ gravitation ” exhibited by larger masses of matter

MORPHOLOGY AND MONSTERS

211

for one another — of which the fall of an apple to the earth
and the “ pull ” of the stars and planets and moons on
one another are examples. But “ cohesion ” is not ex¬
hibited until two particles of the same nature are brought
very close indeed to one another. Adhesion is the name
used when particles of different nature, as, for instance,
water and stone, are concerned. Two highly polished
surfaces of glass (or of metal) will — because their smooth¬
ness enables them to come very close to one another —
when placed one on the other, cohere. They become
united as one piece. This attraction for particle to
particle comes into play at very close quarters, and
only at very close quarters. Crystallization is apparently
a peculiar “ ordering ” or “ regulation ” of cohesion.
Crystalline cohesion is an active definite interference with
the operation of the “ molecular force ” of simple
cohesion.

It is an important fact that some chemical sub¬
stances (chemical “ species,” we may say) occur both
in the amorphous and the crystalline state. Thus the
chemical species silica — the combination of the gaseous
element oxygen and the solid element “ silicon ” — occurs
in the crystalline state, as rock crystal, quartz, and chal¬
cedony, and it also occurs as “ amorphous ” silica, called
opal, and devoid of all crystalline structure. The only
difference in the composition of opal and quartz is the
presence of a little more solidified water in the one than
in the other. And the amorphous silica, or opal, may,
under conditions which are not precisely known, sud¬
denly change into crystalline silica. Another case is
that of the flexible “ amorphous ” sulphur obtained by
pouring melted sulphur into water. This viscous sulphur,
without a trace of crystalline structure when first pre¬
pared, in the course of a few hours begins to change its

212

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

state of cohesion and becomes a mass of minute delicate
crystals.

The “ laws ” or “ rules ” of crystalline cohesion have
been profoundly studied, and are minutely known, though
the existence of this determining force, with all its
variety and relation to chemical composition, remains an
ultimate fact, which we have to accept simply as we do
that of “ gravitation ” and that of the “ chemical attrac¬
tion ” of the elements for one another, resulting in their
combination as “ chemical compounds.”

Our knowledge of crystallization is a part of “ mor¬
phology,” the law of form. It seems strange that one
should write of this subject — crystallization — as an
introduction to the understanding of four-legged chicks.
What has a rock-crystal to do with a misshapen bird ?
The answer is that there is an inherent compelling regula¬
tion of, or interference with, simple cohesion in the
substance of living things which can only be compared
with that strange direction or domination of cohesion in
crystals which is called “ crystal formation.” No one
suggests that what has been called “ organic polarity ”
—the inherent tendency of the substance of plants and
animals to assume definite symmetrical and self-repeating
form — is the same thing as the tendency to take on
crystalline form and structure. But the existence of the
latter and its study may help us in some degree to con¬
ceive of the mechanism at the root of the former. In
any case, they are the two great examples of natural
production of regular, complex, definitely ordered form
by processes having their seat in the very substance
exhibiting the form. These marvellous ordered forms
are not simply and directly wrought by the gross external
agency of ordinary pressure and blow, though they are, of

MORPHOLOGY AND MONSTERS

213

course, bound up with and eventually due to the universal
change and flow of surrounding material things and
modes of motion. They are both due in different degree
to “ molecular forces ” inherent in the substance of
which they consist.

CHAPTER XXIV

MORPHOLOGY AND MONSTERS ( continued )

THE resemblances between the growth and the
form-properties of a living thing and those of
a crystal are in some important respects very
striking. A minute crystal (such as one of common
salt or of alum) placed in water, in which many chemical
compounds are dissolved, as well as that compound of
which it is itself built up, will attract the dissolved
particles identical with its own and add them to itself,
thus “ growing ” in bulk. It will neglect and reject the
other dissolved particles. Thus, in a mixed solution of
alum, common salt, and sugar, a crystal of alum will
pick out by attraction the dissolved alum and leave the
other substances in solution. Similarly the germ of
some living things, or, to take a more simple example, a
small bit cut off from some plants (a bit of the leaf of
Begonia prolifera is the best instance) will, when placed
in damp soil, attract to itself chemical substances dis¬
solved in the moisture which contain the chemical
elements required by it as “ food,” and will add them to
its substance, and thus grow into a perfect plant of large
size.

There is, however, an important difference between the
attractive action of living substance and that of a
crystal. The crystal can only attract the dissolved

MORPHOLOGY AND MONSTERS

215

particles, which are identical in composition with its own
substance. On the contrary, the living thing takes up
substances as “ food ” which contain the chemical
elements it requires, but in different combinations from
that in which they exist in “ protoplasm,” or living
substance. Protoplasm has the unique property of alter¬
ing the chemical combinations of the elements present
in the matter taken in as “ food ” and recombining them
so as to construct the very elaborate chemical combina¬
tions which exist in living substances. This is a very
remarkable power possessed by living substance, and
broadly distinguishes the nutrition and growth of living
things from the attraction exerted by crystals in con¬
sequence of which there is an addition to the crystal of
a ready-made chemical substance identical with that of
which the crystal consists.

Another point in which the growth of living things
resembles that of crystals is that the growing mass has a
definite symmetrical and often elaborate shape, to which
its growth is, as it were, constrained or self-restricted.
As a matter of fact, the “ shaping ” of most living things
is, far and away, more elaborate than that of crystals,
since the outside differs from the inside, and a variety of
parts, internal as well as external, are produced as
growth proceeds, whereas the crystal, though it differs
from an “ amorphous ” substance in having crystalline
“ structure,” yet exhibits the same uniform structure
throughout its mass.

If a crystal be allowed to grow very quietly in a
solution of the chemical substance of which it consists
it will often attain large size, as, for instance, will an
octahedron or double-pyramidal crystal of alum. But
very slight agitation of the liquid or other mechanical

216

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

disturbance will upset the balance and unity of the
crystalline growth ; it will suddenly change its mode of
growth, and grow as two crystals joined to one another
instead of a single one. And this may go further, so
that many crystals will start growing in one mass, instead
of the growth proceeding and keeping the form of a single
enlarging crystal. It is important to notice that when
two or several “ units ” of form thus arise from the
disturbance of the growth of a single crystal the new or
secondary units are precisely of the same form and
character as the single one would have been, but smaller.
A mass is built up by “ repetition ” of similar units of
form instead of by the increase of one original unit. The
same thing occurs in the growth of living forms. Some¬
times an original unit of form goes on increasing in bulk
and remaining as the one individual unit which started
to grow. But most frequently the growing unit, after
some increase, divides incompletely, and we get several
conjoined units of similar form building up the living
thing, and each growing simultaneously. The simplest
form-unit of living matter (protoplasm) is the minute more
or less spherical structure called a “ cell.” Some micro¬
scopic plants and animals (Protozoa and Protophyta)
consist of single cells, which when they divide do so com¬
pletely, and separate from one another to lead an in¬
dependent existence. But in by far the larger number of
living things these primary or simplest units divide and
remain (like a group of crystals) in contact, and form
large “ many-celled ” masses visible to the naked eye,
and in many cases attain vast sizes, such as the whale or
the cedar tree.

Not only that, but the many-celled masses themselves
also acquire definite and restricted symmetrical and
characteristic shape. They are called secondary units,

MORPHOLOGY AND MONSTERS

217

or units of the second order. In animals these secondary
units have essentially the form of a hollow sac, built up by
two layers of “ cells,” with a mouth at one end. Some
animals consist when full grown of a single secondary
unit of this kind. Such are sea-anemones and single
polyps, also some of the simpler worms and the molluscs
(mussels and snails) But just as the primary units, by
division and repetition, give rise to the sac-like secondary
units, so very often do the secondary units also give rise
by growth to aggregations of secondary units instead of
becoming larger and larger and retaining their single
character. These more complicated units are called
units of the third order or “ tertiary ” aggregates, and
they, too, have their own special restricted shape and
characters. They vary greatly in the degree to which the
secondary units, of which they are built up, are either
obvious and nearly separate, or are closely united and
fused so as to be bound closely together to constitute an
individual of the third order. Many animals resembling
sea-anemones, after growing to a certain size as a single
unit, proceed to form a second, and many more, from the
original base by which the creature is attached to a stone
or rock. Thus a whole group of anemone-like individuals
connected at their base arises. This is a “ tertiary
aggregate,” or unit of the third order. It is thus that
corals consisting of thousands of united polyps, come into
existence. The composite assemblage thus formed often
acquires a shape of its own, tree-like or hemispherical,
or, as in the “ sea-pens ” and “ sea-firs,” takes the form
of a plume or palm leaf with a supporting stem and
regularly paired “ leaflets,” each consisting of many
anemone-like polyps.

Among animals one of the commonest modes of
aggregation of secondary units to form tertiary units,

218

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

aggregates, or individuals, is that in which the secondary
units appear as a chain or string, following one another.
Animals thus “ composed ” are often called “ segmented
animals.” Tape-worms are of this nature, and so are the
jointed or segmented worms or annelids, like the earth¬
worm and many marine worms (see Chapter V). So also
are the great series of annulated or jointed animals
which we know as centipedes, arachnids, crustaceans
(crabs, lobsters, and shrimps), and the six-legged and
winged creatures, the insects. In these cases each joint
is, in essential and profound characters of structure and
form, like its fellows. Each ring or segment has its pair
of legs, modified for biting, or walking, or swimming,
but essentially repetitions of one another ; each has
corresponding vessels, nerves, renal tubes, and muscles.
The whole animal is an aggregate of secondary units.
Instead of remaining one single long secondary unit, it
has broken up in the process of growth into a series of
more or less distinct identical units — repetitions of one
another — which remain united in a longitudinal series,
just as the material which might form a single big crystal
may take the form of a row of united smaller crystals of
the same shape.

The “ Repetition of Parts ” is one of the outcomes of
this substitution of aggregates of smaller units for simple
swelling or increase of size of a single unit. The con¬
stituent units of a higher aggregate have each the same
parts and properties as every other, though more or less
“ masked ” and “ latent.” This is a fact of great
importance in the study of the forms assumed, and the
organs developed, by segmented or chain-like animals.

But “ repetition of parts ” occurs in both animal
and vegetable forms in other ways than this. If we break

MORPHOLOGY AND MONSTERS

219

off a piece from a crystal of alum, and then place the
crystal in a solution of alum — the broken part is repaired
by growth — new particles of alum are attracted to the
injured spot, and the proper form and symmetry of the
crystal are restored. It is to this definite balance of a
crystal around guiding lines of form, or “ axes,” that the
term “ polarity ” is applied. We recognize as well as
“ crystalline polarity ” what is called “ organic polarity ”
— a property of fundamental importance in the production
of the forms of animals and plants. Many living things,
if a piece be cut off from them, do not merely “ heal,”
but, like a crystal, reproduce the lost part. If a frog’s
leg (or that of a reptile, bird, or beast) be cut off the wound
will heal, but the leg does not grow again. If, however,
the leg of a newt (the common little salamander-like
amphibian of our ponds) be cut off the leg grows again,
complete in every respect. I had in the museum at
University College, London, a specimen of a newt,
prepared by the celebrated physiologist, Sharpey, in
which the right fore-leg had been cut off four times,
and each time had been perfectly reproduced. The
successive amputated legs were preserved in alcohol,
alongside the complete animal, with its last-grown leg in
position. Just as in the mutilated crystal so here (as is
seen also in many other animals and plants) new growth
took place, and the new material laid down was “ con¬
strained,” forced into the shape both outside and in (for
all the skeleton and muscles are complete) proper to
that position. The growth was “ dominated ” by the
“ polarity ” of the complete organic shape from which
it grew as a part.

“ Organic polarity ” is the inherent “ balance ” of
organic form — for instance, of the right and left sides, the
front and the hinder end, the upper and the lower surfaces,

220

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

and further of one organ or part by another which may
be distant from it, and it includes the repetition in series
of like parts. All these form-determining qualities are
in higher animals and plants very numerous and very
complex. Parts and structures are to a large extent so
“ balanced ” in regard to one another that the increase of
one is regularly, and by a law of growth, accompanied by
the increase of another and often remote part, or by its
decrease. The parts are said to be “ linked ” or “ cor¬
related,” and the word “ correlation ” expresses one of the
most important and far-reaching laws of form and the
growth of form as observed in animals and in plants — a
law to which the morphologists of the present day give
too little attention.

Whilst in crystals the form and correlation of parts
are determined, once for all, by the chemical nature of the
crystal, the polarities and correlations determining the
endless varieties of form of living things have been
gradually accumulated by variation (variation — the
universal redistribution of matter and force more in¬
cessantly and largely evident in living matter than in most
solids) of these qualities in individuals, and the selection or
survival of the fittest — which have, age after age, trans¬
mitted their qualities in the substance of the germs or
buds which they have thrown off to form new generations.
In the course of countless ages these polarities and correla¬
tions, which ultimately are but varied molecular structure
carrying varied molecular attractions, have accumulated
variously in the different lines of descent to an in¬
conceivable degree — so that the branching pedigree
of living things possesses in every diverging branch
special and differing “ polarities of living substance.”
In every group of branches starting from a common
stem there is a community in, or common possession of, an

MORPHOLOGY AND MONSTERS

221

immense heritage of selected and inherited “ polarities.”
Surrounding agencies, forces of tension and pressure, heat
and cold, can act on this marvellously endowed living
substance so as to destroy it, or to force it a little into this
shape or into that shape. But such agencies can do
little. The real determining ultimate cause of form is in
each case, in each living thing, the immense and special
heritage within its substance of polarities and correla¬
tions derived from millions of ancestors, each of whom
has contributed a fraction. There is profound truth in
the old writer’s statement, “ All flesh is not the same
flesh : but there is one flesh of men, another of beasts,
another of fishes, and another of birds.”

Just as the splinter of a crystal reproduces the whole
crystal, just as the body of the newt separated from its
limb reproduces the limb in perfect shape — just as the
bit of a green leaf nurtured on moist earth will grow into
a complete plant of stem, roots, leaves, and flowers — so
the microscopic particles specially thrown off by living
things as reproductive germs, spores, or egg-cells, grow
to the perfect form, and, being but bits of the parent,
they inherit, as we say, or possess as a matter of course,
the properties and polarities of the parent of which
they are only little bits. They grow to full size, and with
wonderful precision the little shapeless mass, as it takes
in nutriment and grows, exhibits the “ polarities,” the
compelling form-scheme of its parent.

In a vertebrate animal, say a full-grown chick, the
right and left sides are alike ; they more or less exactly
balance or represent one another in structure. During
its growth in the egg the chick is a long streak with
similar right and left sides. The rudiment of a right
and of a left wing appear simultaneously, and the rudi-

222

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

ment of a right and a left leg. The streak takes form
as a series of segments, repetitions of one another —
following one another in line — the vertebral segments.
The head and neck “ balance ” the tail ; the hind-limbs
are in essential details of structure merely repetitions of
the fore-limbs — the wings. This is more clearly seen in
fishes, where the fore and the hind paired fins are but
two fan-like concentrations or bunches of fin-rays which
in ancestral fishes were spread along the whole length of
the body — a single fin-ray to each vertebral segment.
The wonder is not that these agreements and exact
“ shapings ” sometimes go wrong during early growth
from the germ and so form “ monsters,” but that they
keep true to pattern in so many thousand individuals
whilst only one is born in which some kind of failure
occurs. The failures, or incomplete or redundant forma¬
tions, die at a very early age in most animals. In fish-
hatcheries, where tens of thousands of young fish are
hatched out from their eggs in tanks under human care
and easy observation, quite a large number of “ mon¬
strosities ” make their appearance, but soon die, owing
to their inability to compete with their brethren for food
and safety, unless specially separated from them and
reared with skill.

A common kind of monstrosity is the more or less
complete division of the very young embryo into two,
just as a growing crystal may divide into two conjoined
crystals. This dividing process may affect the head only,
so that you get two-headed monsters, common in very
young fish, in chicks, and in lambs, and even in human
embryos. Or, again, the division may affect only the
hinder part, and thus you get everything else as usual
excepting two complete pairs of hinder fins, or two com¬
plete pairs of hinder legs. The actual cause of the dis-

MORPHOLOGY AND MONSTERS

223

turbance — of the failure in correct growth and the in¬
complete division into two — is not altogether clear, though
experiments have been made on the eggs of fishes and
fowls and “ artificial ” monsters have been thus pro¬
duced. It is certain that the failure is due to mechanical
or to physiological causes which have operated naturally
at a very early stage, when the growth of the shapeless
germ of highly sensitive form-determined protoplasm was
but just commencing. We may now pass to a brief
account of the chief forms of “ monsters ” produced by
higher animals.

CHAPTER XXV

VARIOUS KINDS OF MONSTERS

TO one who has read the preceding chapter, it
will not appear surprising that what are called
“ monsters ” are born from all sorts of living
things. They are usually offspring of unusual and
astonishing shape, yet keeping within definite lines of
symmetry and of likeness to the parents, differing gro¬
tesquely from the latter, yet agreeing with them in inti¬
mate structure. The polarity, the balance of parts shown
in normal healthy individuals is obviously operative, but
it fails, and, as it were, blunders in its work. Plants
as well as animals exhibit such monstrosities. All
“ double ” flowers are of this nature, the innate identity
of the stamens and carpels with the leaf-like petals
suddenly asserting itself by the appearance of stamens
and carpels in the shape of petals. The “ green rose ”
is another monster in which the parts of the flower assume
the form and colour of foliage leaves, a proceeding
which has a certain “ lawfulness ” about it, since the
foliage leaves and the parts of the flower are in ancestral
plants one and the same series of organs or parts. In
Kew Gardens there is a rose-bush which produces these
interesting green roses. The “ fasciate ” asparagus and
coxcomb are monsters which are “ orderly,” but incorrect,
growths. Here I shall confine further statements to the
monsters produced by the higher vertebrate animals,
including man.

224

VARIOUS KINDS OF MONSTERS

225

The interest and superstition which in past ages
were connected with the birth of “ monsters ” are a
part of the general system of “ omen-reading ” and
“ augury ” which mediaeval Europe received from the
Romans, among whom it attained to a growth and
importance so dominating that it is difficult, at the
present day, to form a conception of its preposterous
pretensions. Mankind have from the earliest times
desired to know the future, and to be warned beforehand
of impending danger. The wish has been father to the
thought, or rather to a whole series of preposterous,
unreasonable thoughts. The Romans elaborated most
carefully a plan of inspecting the entrails of animals
(especially the liver) killed for the purpose, in order to
obtain from their individual differences a pretended
indication of lucky and unlucky action on the part of the
individual for whom the inspection was made. A highly
respected profession, well paid and handed on from
father to son, existed, charged with the duty of reading
the “ will of the gods ” in the signs sent by them in the
entrails of dead animals, and also in the flight of birds
(auspicium, avi-spicium, or bird-viewing). This pro¬
fession persisted even into Christian times, and the
picture of an early saint has lately been shown to represent
him as carrying in his hand a pig’s liver — the emblem of
his profession as an augur — a curious object, the nature
of which had long puzzled the learned.

It is not wonderful that we still find in country places
a belief in divination and the omens given by birds.
Probably a true and really effective study by primitive
man of the movements of birds, guiding him as to the
position of food or water or indicating certain changes
of season, preceded the utterly foolish system of augury.
It has constantly been the fate of man to create worthless

226 GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

superstition from the truthful and valuable teaching of
preceding generations. There is, on the whole, a slight —
but only a’fslight — general improvement in this matter
among the^educated classes of civilized communities.
In the Far East for many ages the prosperous classes
have accepted a system of divination (called geomancy)
by reference to the shape of the land — hills, valleys, and
rivers. In the time of the Stuarts we, in England, were
still willing to be directed by the elaborate imposture
called astrology, and quite a large number of ill-edu¬
cated wompn in the well-to-do classes (as well as their
kitchen-maids) believe at the present day that their future
can be foretold by the inspection by an expert of the
folds of skin on the palms of their hands. This method
of augury was not practised by the Romans (who pre¬
ferred a good solid liver for the gods to mark their will
with), but it is of very ancient use in China. The indica¬
tions, however, recognized by the Chinese are quite
contradictory of those admitted in recent European
palmistry. Both are baseless inventions.

The foregoing remarks are introductory to the state¬
ment that even such a man as Martin Luther was much
troubled by the birth in his day of a monstrous calf (I do
not know whether it was two-headed or eight-legged).
He writes of it as pointing to some great impending
event, and expresses the hope that the catastrophe may
not be the last day itself. A hundred years later,
Evelyn, the cultivated country gentleman and courtier,
and early Fellow of the Royal Society, does not hesi¬
tate to advance a similar belief in regard to another
class of natural “ monster.” He says : “ The effects of
that comet, 1618, are still working in the prodigious
revolutions now beginning in Europe, especially in
Germany.”

VARIOUS KINDS OF MONSTERS

227

In yet earlier times treatises concerning animal and
human monsters were written, and they were regarded as
of vast significance and importance. The chief kinds
were named as follows : The Siren (having the form of
a mermaid, the two legs being united or fused to form
a sort of tail), the Janus (a two-headed monster), the
Satyr (a human being with a distinct tail), the Cyclops
(a monster with one eye in the centre of the forehead,
instead of a pair). Others were enumerated, but in some
cases actual animals newly brought from distant lands,
and therefore unfamiliar, were confused with the excep¬
tionally misshapen offspring of ordinary animals and of
man. So little was known, so much was new and
unfamiliar in those remote days, that any story of a
monster was accepted as true. Now we have a fairly
complete knowledge of the kinds of living things in all
parts of the world, and can assign specimens to their
proper groups and to regularly recurring causes.

Animal monsters of the vertebrate class are nowa¬
days divided first of all into those which are due to simple
mechanical injury and deformation and those which are
due to a more subtle change, resulting in a modification of
the natural growth with irregular or incorrect assertion
of symmetry and polarity. The first group is very
limited. The most usual case is that of the amputation
during intra-uterine life of limbs or fingers or toes. Such
deformations are not paired ” or regular, and are due
to the accidental nipping or pressure on the amputated
parts by displaced uterine membranes or cords during
the foetal growth. The second group is the more curious
and varied. These monsters may be classed as those due
to (i) redundancy of growth ; (2) reversed position of the
viscera (right placed as left and left as right) ; (3) defective
closure of the growing embryo in the mid-line ; (4)

228

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

hermaphroditism ; (5) fusion of parts related by organic
polarity to one another ; (6) double monsters (the most
striking in appearance).

With regard to monsters showing redundancy of
parts, cases are common both in animals and man of an
extra finger or toe on all four limbs or on one pair, and
specimens are to be seen in our chief museums. Do¬
mestic cats with six toes on each foot are not uncommon.
A horse is sometimes born with three hoofs, or even four.
Julius Caesar is said to have had a favourite horse of
this description. Extra vertebrae in the spinal column
sometimes occur, also two rows of teeth instead of one.
Long hair like that on the head sometimes occurs all
over the face, so that a “ parting ” can be made from the
tip of the nose to the back of the head. Nipples and
mammary glands in excess of the pair proper to human
beings sometimes occur irregularly scattered on the
body, to the number of seven or eight, and a case is
recorded where one of large size grew in the middle of
the back. Supernumerary mammae are commoner in
men than in women. A second external ear sometimes
occurs, and a second and third pair of holes like that
protected by our ear-conch sometimes are found. This
is the persistence of a second and third pair of gill-slits,
which in vertebrates above fishes regularly close up in
early embryonic life and disappear. The ear-hole or
“ external auditory passage ” is really the first of the gill-
slits, and does not disappear as the others do, though it
is closed within by the delicate membrane called the
“ drum ” of the ear.

The reversed position of the viscera is not very un¬
common in man — the heart is on the right side and the
liver on the left. Defective closure of the mid-line in

VARIOUS KINDS OF MONSTERS

229

embryonic growth leads to “ spina bifida ” and also to
“ hare-lip,” but in extreme cases results in complete
defect of the crown of the head and the production of a
brainless monster which does not survive birth for more
than a few days.

The condition known as “ hermaphroditism,” that
is, the presence of the testis or sperm-producing organ
and the ovary or egg-producing organ in the same
individual, is the usual and regular thing in many lower
animals ; for instance, in the little green polyp or Hydra,
in a great many worms (including the earth-worm and
river-worms), and in many snails, slugs, and clams.
This was the earlier condition of animals, and distinct
sexes have been produced subsequently by the suppres¬
sion of either ovary or testes. Hermaphroditism does
not occur in vertebrate animals as a regular and normal
thing except in certain species of sea perch (Serranus),
from the Mediterranean. In some other fishes (cod,
herring, and flat-fish) as a rare exception a testis and an
ovary are found in the same individual. And in toads
and frogs minute aborted ovaries occur in the male, and
small testes sometimes in the female. In all higher
vertebrates true hermaphroditism is quite unknown.
The female has no trace of testis, the male no trace of
ovary. But in the mammals the external parts connected
with these organs have an essentially identical plan of
structure, and at an early period of foetal growth are
indistinguishable. Cases occur in which the external
organs of the adult male resemble (though differing clearly
enough from) those of the female, and vice versa. These
cases are often called “ hermaphrodites,” although they
are really, in regard to the essential organ, either male
or female, and are not true hermaphrodites at all. The
fact of the existence of this monstrosity ( cases of which are

230

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

well known at the present day) gave rise to the Greek
fable of “ Hermaphroditus,” and to the statues in Paris
and Rome known by that name.

The fusion during growth of parts related by polarity
leads to the uniting to one another of the fingers or of the
toes, two or more ; also to the fusion of the legs, as in
the monster called the Siren. It is worth pointing
out that no such fusion of the legs has occurred in the
formation, either of the seals or the Dugongs and
Manatees, nor in that of the whales, although such an
explanation of their form has been sometimes suggested.
The most curious case of a monster by fusion is known
by the name “ Cyclops,” or one-eyed monster. This
occurs in domesticated animals, and is not rare in
the pig. The two orbits are fused in the middle line,
and there is only one eyeball (sometimes there are two
close together in one orbit). The nose at the same time
undergoes a change, forming a short trunk which pro¬
jects from the forehead above the single eye. The
mouth is round and minute, or absent altogether. These
monsters do not survive more than a few days after birth.

Double monsters (to which group the four-legged
chick belongs) are best traced from the most complete
case of doubling, namely, complete separation of the two
halves resulting from fission. We can then arrange, as a
series, the various phases of incomplete “ doubling.”
Human twins are of two kinds, namely, identical twins and
ordinary twins. Ordinary twins are due to two “ ova ”
or egg-cells being discharged from the ovary into the
uterus at the same time, instead of a single one. In
many mammals a number of young are started in this
way — what we call a “ litter.” On the other hand,
“ identical twins ” start from a single ovum, which on

VARIOUS KINDS OF MONSTERS

231

arriving in the uterus (we do not know precisely why)
divides into two completely. Identical twins are always
of the same sex (a very important fact when the question
arises as to what determines the sex of offspring), and
have a wonderful closeness of similarity in appearance and
character. This multiplication by division of the very
young embryo occurs in the Armadillos as a normal
thing. Occasionally this rare tendency of the minute
germ or egg-cell to divide into two does not fully assert
itself, but results in an incomplete division of the ovum
into two. The division is usually such as to pass along
the middle line from back to front, and where it is in¬
complete we find two symmetrical individuals resulting,
which are more or less completely joined side by side.
In rarer cases the division of the ovum is such as to tra¬
verse the mid-line from right to left, and often results in
two united individuals of very unequal size. Rarely such
cases have survived to maturity, and one is known (and
shown by a model in the museum of the College of
Surgeons) in which a full-grown man had projecting
from his chest the body and limbs of a small second
individual not bigger than an infant.

The symmetrical right and left double-monsters are
commoner. The celebrated Siamese twins were of this
nature, being united by only a narrow band of flesh,
extending from the lower part of the body. The division
of the egg-cell was very nearly complete in their case.
Other cases are known in which the head and arms and
front part of the body of the two individuals are distinct,
as also the two pairs of legs, but there is a union of the
lower part of the two vertebral columns and of the pelves.
This was the qase with the “ Two-headed Nightingale,”
Millie and Christina, and with'other well-known examples.
The former could sing in distinct parts by each head, and

232

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

could use all four legs separately and rhythmically.
Each head could control either or both pairs of legs !
In birds you may get the division both before and behind,
so as to give two heads and four legs, or you may have the
“ splitting ” limited to the hinder region, so as to give
a normal one-headed bird with two pairs of legs. All
degrees and varieties of this dividing along the middle
line are found from time to time among the offspring of
domestic animals and birds. A great field for the study
of these monsters is furnished by fish-hatcheries, where
large numbers of them are born and can be secured by
the naturalist, though they rarely, if ever, grow to any
size, their misshapen bodies preventing them from
catching food and escaping from predatory enemies.
I have examined a two-headed dogfish, which was
captured in the sea and was 12 inches long.

The two-headed monster called a Janus is a doubled
or split monster in which only the head is involved, and
the splitting may be so slight that though there are two
faces, there is only one brain-case and one brain. It is
important to remember that none of these double monsters
are due to a fusion of two originally distinct embryos.
Always they are due to a very early division of the embryo
into two, which may be of minimal extent or may be
nearly or quite complete.

CHAPTER XXVI

TOBACCO

APART from the question as to whether the
smoking of tobacco is injurious to the health or
not, there are many curious questions which arise
from time to time as to the history and use of tobacco.
I have no doubt that for children the use of tobacco is
injurious, and I am inclined to think that it is only free
from objection in the case of strong, healthy men, and
that even they should avoid any excess, and should only
smoke after meals, and never late at night. The
strongest man, who can tolerate a cigar or a pipe after
breakfast, lunch, and dinner, may easily get into a con¬
dition of “ nerves ” when even one cigarette acts as a
poison and causes an injurious slowing of the heart’s
action.

A curious mistake, almost universally made, is that
of supposing that the oily juice which forms in a pipe
when tobacco is “ smoked ” in it, or at the narrow end
of a cigar when it is consumed by “smoking,” is
“ nicotine,” the chief nerve-poison of tobacco. As a
matter of fact, this juice, though it contains injurious
substances, contains little or no “ nicotine.” Nicotine is
a colourless volatile liquid, which is vaporized and carried
along with the smoke ; it is not deposited in the pipe or
cigar-end except in very small quantity. It is the chief

233

234

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

agent by which tobacco acts on the nervous system, and
through that on the heart — the agent whose effects are
sought and enjoyed by the lover of tobacco. A single
drop of pure nicotine will kill a dog. Nicotine has no
aroma, and has nothing to do with the flavour of tobacco,
which is due to very minute quantities of special volatile
bodies similar to those which give a scent to hay.

Most people are acquainted with the three ways of
“ taking tobacco ” — that of taking its smoke into the
mouth, and more or less into the lungs, that of chewing
the prepared leaf, and that of snuffing up the powdered
leaf into the nose, whence it ultimately passes to the
stomach A fourth modification of the snuffing and
chewing methods exists in what is called the “ snuff
stick ” According to the novelist, Mrs. Hodgson
Burnett, the country women in Kentucky use a short
stick, like a brush, which they dip into a paperful of
snuff ; they then rub the powder on to the gums. Snuff¬
taking has almost disappeared in “ polite society ” in
this country within the past twenty years, but snuffing and
chewing are still largely practised by those whose occupa¬
tion renders it impossible or dangerous for them to carry
a lighted pipe or cigar — such as sailors and fishermen and
workers in many kinds of factories and engine-rooms.

One of the most curious questions in regard to the
history of tobacco is that as to whether its use originated
independently in Asia or was introduced there by
Europeans. It is largely cultivated and used for smoking
throughout the East from Turkey to China — including
Persia and India on the way — and special varieties of
tobacco, the Turkish, the Persian, and the Manilla are
well known, and only produced in the East, whilst special
forms of pipe, such as the “ hukah ” or “ hooka,” the

TOBACCO

235

hubble-bubble,” and the small Chinese pipe are dis¬
tinctively Oriental. Not only that, but the islanders of the
Far East are inveterate smokers of tobacco, and some of
them have peculiar methods of obtaining the smoke, as,
for instance, certain North Australians who employ “ a
smoke-box ” made of a joint of bamboo. Smoke is
blown into this receptacle by a faithful spouse, who
closes its opening with her hand and presents the boxful
of smoke to her husband. He inhales the smoke and
hands the bamboo joint back to his wife for refilling.
The Asiatic peoples are great lovers of tobacco, and it is
certain that in Java they had tobacco as early as 1601, and
in India in 1605. The hookah (a pipe, with water-jar
attached, through which the smoke is drawn in bubbles)
was seen and described by a European traveller in 1614.
Should we not, therefore, suppose that in Asia they had
tobacco and practised smoking before it was introduced
from America into the West of Europe ? It seems
unlikely that Western nations have given this luxury
to the East when practically everything else of the
kind has come from the East to Europe — the grape
and wine made from it, the orange, lemon, peach, fig,
spices of all kinds, pepper and incense. Yet it is certain
that the Orientals got the habit of smoking tobacco from
us, and not we from them.

Incredible as it seems, the investigations of the Swiss
botanist, De Candolle (see his delightful “ History of
Cultivated Plants ” — a wonderful volume, published for
5s., in the International Scientific Series), and of Colonel
Sir David Prain, formerly in India, and lately Director
of Kew, have rendered it quite certain that the Orientals
owe tobacco and the habit of smoking entirely to the
Europeans, who brought it from America, as early as
1558. In the year 1560 Jean Nicot, the French Am-

236

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

bassador, saw the plant in Portugal, and sent seeds to
France to Catherine de’ Medici. It was named Nicotiana
in his honour. But the introduction into Europe of the
practice of smoking is chiefly due to the English. In
1586 Ralph Lane, the first Governor of Virginia, and
Sir Francis Drake brought over the pipes of the North
American Indians and the tobacco prepared by them.
The English enthusiasm for tobacco-smoking, “ drinking
a pipe of tobacco,” as it was at first called, was extra¬
ordinary both for its sudden development, its somewhat
excessive character, and the violent antagonism which it
aroused, and, as we learn from Mr. Frederic Harrison,
still arouses. It was called “ divine tobacco ” by the
poet Spenser, and “ our holy herb nicotian ” by William
Lilly (the astrologer, not the schoolmaster), and not long
afterwards denounced as a devilish poison by King James.
The reason why the English had most to do with the
introduction of smoking is that the inhabitants of South
America did not smoke pipes, but chewed the tobacco, or
took it as snuff, and less frequently smoked it as a cigar.
From the Isthmus of Panama as far as Canada and
California, on the other hand, the custom of smoking
pipes was universal. Wonderful carved pipes of great
variety were found in use by the natives of these regions,
and were also dug up in very ancient burial grounds.
Hence the English colonists of Virginia were the first
to introduce pipe-smoking to Europe

The Portuguese had discovered the coasts of Brazil
as early as 1500, and it is they who carried tobacco to
their possessions and trading ports in the Far East — to
India, Java, China, and Japan, so that in less than a
hundred years it was well established in those countries.
Probably it went about the same time from Spain and
England to Turkey, and from there to Persia. The

TOBACCO

237

Eastern peoples rapidly developed not only special new
forms of pipe (the hookah) for the consumption of to¬
bacco, but also within a few years special varieties of
the plant itself. These were raised by cultivation, and
have formerly been erroneously regarded as native Asiatic
species of tobacco plant.

The definite proof of the fact that tobacco was in this
way introduced from Western Europe to the Oriental
nations is, first, that Asiatics have no word for it except¬
ing a corruption of the original American name tabaco,
tobacco, or tambuco : it is certain that it is not mentioned
in Chinese writings nor represented in their pottery
before the year 1680. In the next place, it appears that
careful examination of old herbariums and of the records
of early travellers who knew plants well and recorded
all they saw, proves that no species of tobacco is a native
of Asia. There are fifty species of tobacco, but all are
American excepting the Nicotiana suaveolens, which is
a native of the Australian continent, and the Nicotiana
fragrans, which is a native of the Isle of Pines, near New
Caledonia.

Forty-eight different species of tobacco (that is to say,
of the genus Nicotiana) are found in America. Of these,
Nicotiana tabacum is the only one which has been ex¬
tensively cultivated. It has been found wild in the State
of Ecuador, but was cultivated by the natives both of
North and South America before the advent of Euro¬
peans. It seems probable that all the tobaccos grown in
the Old World for smoking or snuffing are only cultivated
varieties — often with very special qualities — of the
N. tabacum, with the exception of the Shiraz tobacco
plant, which, though called N. persica, is of Brazilian
origin, and the N. rustica, of Linnaeus, a native of

238

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

Mexico, which has a yellow flower, and yields a coarse
kind of tobacco. This has been cultivated in South
America and also in Asia Minor. But tobaccos so dif¬
ferent as the Havana, the Maryland and Virginian,
the incomparable Latakia, the Manilla, and the Rou-
melian or Turkish — all come from culture-varieties of the
one great species, N. tabacum.

The treatment of tobacco-leaf to prepare it for use in
smoking, snuffing, and chewing requires great skill and
care, and is directed by the tradition and experience of
centuries. As is the case with “ hay,” the dried tobacco-
leaf undergoes a kind of fermentation, and, in fact, more
than one such change. The cause of the fermentation
is a micro-organism which multiplies in the dead leaf and
causes chemical changes, just as the yeast organism
grows in “ wort ” and changes it to “ beer.” It is said
that the flavour and aroma of special tobaccos is due
to special kinds of ferment, and that by introducing
the Havana ferment or micro-organism to tobacco-
leaves grown away from Cuba, you can give them much
of the character of Havana tobacco ! A very valuable
kind of tobacco is the Roumelian, from which the best
Turkish cigarettes are made. It has a very delicate
flavour, and very small quantities of an aromatic kind
prepared from a distinct variety of tobacco plant grown
near Ephesus and on the Black Sea (probably a cultivated
variety of N. rustica) are judiciously blended with it.
This blending, and the use of the very finest qualities of
tobacco-leaf, are essential points in the production of
the best Turkish cigarettes. The so-called “ Egyptian ”
cigarettes are made from less valuable Turkish tobacco,
with the addition of an excess of the aromatic kind. It
is a mistake to suppose that opium or other matters are
used to adulterate tobacco The only proceeding of the

TOBACCO

239

kind which occurs is the mixing of inferior, cheap, and
coarse-flavoured tobaccos with better kinds. Water and
also starch are used fraudulently to increase the weight
of leaf-tobacco. But skilful “ blending ” is a legitimate
and most important feature in the manufacture of cigars,
cigarettes, and smoking mixtures.

The first “ smoking ” of tobacco seen by Europeans
was that of the Caribs or Indians of San Domingo.
They used a very curious sort of tubular pipe, shaped
like the letter Y. The diverging arms were placed one
up each nostril, and the end of the stem held in the smoke
of burning tobacco-leaves, which was thus “ sniffed up ”
into the nose. The North American Indians, on the
other hand, had pipes very similar to those still in use.
The natives of South America smoked the rolled leaf
(cigars), chewed it, and took it as snuff.

It has been suggested that, in Asia, smoking of some
kind of dried herbs may have been a habit before
tobacco was introduced — since even Herodotus states
that the Scythians were accustomed to inhale the
smoke of burning weeds, and showed their enjoyment
of it by howling like dogs ! But investigation does not
support the view that anything corresponding to indi¬
vidual or personal “ smoking ” existed. “ Bang ” or
“ hashish ” (the Indian hemp) was not “ smoked,” but
swallowed as a kind of paste before the introduction of
tobacco-smoking in the East — as we may gather from the
stories of the “ Arabian Nights ’’—although the practice
of smoking hemp (which is the chief constituent of
“ bang ”) and also of smoking the narcotic herb “ hen¬
bane,” has now been established. Opium was, and is,
eaten in India, not “ smoked.” The “ smoking ” of
opium is a Chinese invention of the eighteenth century.

240

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

The Oriental hookah suggests a history anterior to
the use of tobacco, but nothing is known of it. The
word signifies a cocoanut-shell, and is applied to the jar
(sometimes actually a cocoanut) containing perfumed
water, through which smoke from a pipe, fixed so as to
dip into the water, is drawn by a long tube with mouth¬
piece. It seems possible that this apparatus was in use
for inhaling perfume by means of bubbles of air drawn
through rose-water or such liquids, before tobacco¬
smoking was introduced, and that the tobacco-pipe and
the perfume-jar were then combined. But travellers
before the year 1600 do not mention the existence of the
hookah in Persia or in India, though as soon as tobacco
came into use this apparatus is described by Floris, in
1614, and by Olearius, in 1633, and by all subsequent
travellers.

The conclusion to which careful inquiry has led is
that though various Asiatic races have appreciated the
smoke of various herbs and enjoyed inhaling it from time
immemorial, yet there was no definite “ smoking ” in
earlier times. No pipes or rolled-up packets of dried
leaves — to be placed in the mouth and sucked whilst
slowly burning — were in use before the introduction
of tobacco by Europeans, who brought the tobacco-
plant from America and the mode of enjoying its smoke,
and passed on its seeds to the peoples of Turkey, Persia,
India, China, and Japan.

CHAPTER XXVII

CEREBRAL INHIBITION

THE best golf-player does not think, as he plays
his stroke, of the hundred-and-one muscular
contractions which, accurately co-ordinated, result
in his making a fine drive or a perfect approach ; nor
does the pianist examine the order of movement of
his fingers. His “ sub-liminal self,” his “ unconscious
cerebration,” attends to these details without his con¬
scious intervention, and all the better for the absence of
what the nerve-physiologists call “ cerebral inhibition ”
— that is to say, the delay or arrest due to the sending
round of the message or order to the muscles by way of
the higher brain-centres, instead of letting it go directly
from a low^er centre without the intervention of the seats
of attention and consciousness. The sneezing caused in
most people by a pinch of ordinary snuff can be rendered
impossible by “ cerebral inhibition,” set up by a wager
with the snuff-taking victim that he will fail to sneeze in
three minutes, however much snuff he may take. His
attention to the mechanism of the anticipated sneeze,
and his desire for it, inhibit the whole apparatus. So
long as you can make him anxious to sneeze and fix his
attention on the effort to do so, by a judicious exhortation
at intervals, he will not succeed in sneezing. When the
three minutes are up, and you both have ceased to be
interested in the matter, he will probably sneeze unex-
16

242

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

pectedly and sharply. I was set on to this train of thought
by a recent visit to an exhibition of photographs.

There were many very interesting illustrations of the
application of photography to scientific investigation.
Among others I saw a fine enlarged photograph of the
common millipede (Julus terrestris), and my desire was
renewed to have a bioscopic film-series of the movements
of this creature’s legs. Some years ago I attempted to
analyse, and published an account of, the regular
rhythmic movement of the legs of millipedes. I found
that the “ phases ” of forward and backward swing are
presented in groups of twelve pairs of legs, each pair of
legs being in the same phase of movement as the twelfth
pair beyond it. But instantaneous photography would
give complete certainty about the movement in this case,
and in the case of the even more beautiful “ rippling ”
movement of the legs of some of the marine worms.
Some kindly photographer might take up the investiga¬
tion and prepare a series of films. The problem is
raised and the effects of “ cerebral inhibition ” are de¬
scribed in a fanciful little poem written, I believe, by
a lady. As it is not widely known, I give it here as a
record of “ cerebral inhibition ” :

" A centipede was happy 'til
One day a toad in fun
Said, ‘ Pray, which leg moves after which ? *

This raised her doubts to such a pitch
She fell exhausted in the ditch,

Not knowing how to run.”

The point, of course, is that she could execute the
complex movement of her legs well enough until her
brain was set to work and her conscious attention given
to the matter. Then “ cerebral inhibition ” took place
and she broke down.

INDEX

Absorption bands in spectrum of
blood-red, 49

Actors, cinema records of, 26
Age, extreme old, 161
Alchemists, the last of the, 156
Amoeba, cinema records of, 31
Annelids, reproduction by fission,
59, 63

Archer, Mr. William, on telepathy,

131

Bacteria, poisonous, of the in¬
testine checked by the
lactic bacillus, 192
Balance, a law of organic forms,
220

Balzac’s “ peau de chagrin,” 169
“ Bang,” or " Hashish,” 239
Bilharzia, the blood parasite of
Africa, 73

Blood corpuscles, colourless, 32,
33, 34

Blood-crystals, 47, 54
Blood-red in the coiled pond-
snail, 52

in water-fleas and blood-worms,
53

Breeding habits and combs of the
wasp, 128

Bury, Professor, on Progress, 75

Caribs or Indians of San Domingo,
their mode of inhaling
tobacco-smoke, 239
Cat and mouse, 93
story of a hidden, 146
Cat-sense, 145

Cell-division, growth and multi¬
plication in living tissue
shown by the cinema, 25
Centipede, the, verses concerning,
242

Cercaria, 71

Cerebral inhibition, 241
Chaetogaster, distinct adult and
larval forms of, 59
Chaetogaster Limnaeae, 56
Charcot at the Salpetriere Hos¬
pital, 150

Chemical compounds and crystal¬
line form, 208-213
elements, the, 207
Chinese records of tobacco, 237
Cigar-smoking, origin of, 236
Cinema, origin of the, 16-19
Creator, views as to the character
of the, 86, 87

Crows, story of the three black,
201

Cruelty in Nature, 83 et seq.
Crystals and morphology, 206
resemblances to and differences
from forms of living things,
214

Cuttle-fish, eye of the, 116, 120
Cyclops, name given to a common
congenital deformity, 230
Cyclostoma, a land-snail, 46

Dancers, cinema records of, 26, 27
Dancing mania, the, 142
De Candolle on the history of
tobacco, 235

Diapedesis, or out-wandering of
phagocytes, 36

Dicynodont reptiles, third eye
of, 1 12

Discovery, misuse of the word,
162

Disharmonies in man’s structure,

190

Distomum, a genus of flukes, 66
Dogfish, a two-headed, 232
Du Chaillu on the habits of the
gorilla, 5

Duration of life, 163

*43

244

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

Elements, the chemical, 20 7
End-organs of nerves, 97
Evidence and proof, 136
Expectation of life, 163

marked increase of, during
the past forty years, 164
Experiments, two made by the
author, 149

Eye at the back of the head, 106
structure of the, in the Scorpion,
the Limpet, the Snail, the
Cuttle-fish, and the Nauti¬
lus, in-117

Fancy, an unwarranted, 131
Film showing co-ordinated move¬
ments of the legs of sea-
worms, centipedes, and
multipedes — much desired
by biologists, 242
Fission as a mode of multiplica¬
tion in worms, 59, 63
Foot of man, gorilla, and monkey,
compared, 8

Form, laws of, in living things, 217

Galloping horse, problem of the,
started the cinema film,
16, 17

Genital bristles of Nais serpentina,
56

of Chaetogaster, 62
Giants, 196 et seq.

a list of well-attested modern,
199

bones of big animals mistaken
for those of, 200
legends of, 199

Goldsmith on the “ Tarantella,”
142

Gorilla, species and varieties of, 10
of Hanno the Carthaginian, 12
the, of Sloane Street, 1

Haemoglobin, 47-54
Hermaphrodites, 229
Herodotus on “ smoking,” 239
Hodgson Burnett, Mrs., on the
snuff - stick, used in Ken¬
tucky, 234

Hookah, the, 237, 240
Hosts, in primary and final, in¬
habited by parasites, 67
Huxley on the gorilla, 13

Ichthyosaurus skull, showing ori¬
fice for the third eye, 1 1 1
Inhibition of sneezing, 241

of co-ordinated movements, 242
Intestinal gardens, culture of our,
191

Intestine, the great, a source of
poisons, 188

Job, the Book of, 87

Lampreys and hag-fish, third
eye of, no

Language, the instrument of
human progress, 80, 81
Latrodectus, a poisonous spider,
M3

Lease of life, the, 170

the, in giants and dwarfs,
196

Lens of the eye differs in essential
origin and structure in
different classes of animals,
118, 119, 121

Lewis, Sir George Cornewall, dis¬
putes duration of life to a
century, 167

Life, expectation and duration of,
163, 164
Limnaea, 41

truncatula, the primary host of
the liver-fluke, 72
Limpet, eye of the, 115
Liver-fluke, the, 66—73
Lizards, third eye of, 10 7-1 12
Longevity and lease of life, 1 70
baseless credulity concerning,
167

of trees, 174

of various animals, 173, 174
potential, 171

Machnow exhibited in Paris, the
tallest giant on trust¬
worthy record, 197
Magnet, experiment with a, 152,
154

Magnetical cures, 151
Man, his wonderful powers sung
by Sophocles, 8S
paired eyes of, 119
Manich$ism, 86

McCook, Dr., on spider’s poison,
142

INDEX

245

Measled pork, 68
Metallic discs supposed to cause
absence of sensation when
applied to the arm, 152
Metchnikoff on longevity, 1 76
on old age and causes of death,
178 et seq.

Microscope and cinema-photo¬
graphy combined, 24, 25
Milk, sour, use of, as taught by
Metchnikoff, 192

Miracidium, the youngest form of
the liver-fluke, 71
Monsters, 204
artificial, 223
four-armed, 222
four-legged, 222
human and animal, a list of
names assigned to, 227
two-headed, 222

Monstrous deformities as omens,
225

flowers, 224

Morphology and monsters, 204 et
seq.

Mouse, the, as a bogy, 141
Muybridge, the originator of the
cinema film, 18

Natica, a sea-snail, 40
Nature, question as to whether
cruel, 83

Nautilus, eye of the Pearly, 117
Nerves, afferent and efferent, 95
Nicotine, 234

origin of the name, 236

Old age, how to enjoy a happy,
193

Operculum of a land-snail, 46

Pain, beneficent nature of, 89
measurement of, 90, 94
Paludina, 44
Parietal eye, 107-112
Phagocytes, or eater-cells, 24, 33,
34

Pineal eye, 10 7-1 12
Pipe -smoking, introduced by
Ralph Lane and Drake
from North America, 236
Planorbis, 44

Pocock, Mr. R., on foot of chim¬
panzee, 6

Poison of spiders, 143
of toads, 144

Polarities, the compelling form-
scheme of growth in living
things, 220
Polarity, organic, 219
Pond-snail, the flea of the, 55
flat-coiled, or Planorbis, 44
of running water, Paludina, 44
Pond-snails and other molluscs,
38-46

Price, Dr. James, of Oxford,
pretends to transmute base
metals into silver and gold,
157

detection and death of, 159
Progress, definition of, 74, 77
Purchas gives description of the
Pongo and Engeco by
Andrew Battell, 12

Record, the great, of humanity,

Records to be made by cinema
film, 19, 26

Redia, or “ King’s yellow worm,”
7i

Registers of birth and death, 163
Repetition of parts, 218
Rhinoceros horn supposed to
paralyse poisonous crea¬
tures, 150

Rowell, Mr., of Oxford, on the
beneficent nature of pain,

Royal Society demands proof of
his statements from Dr.
James Price, 158

Royal Society’s experiment with
powdered horn of rhino¬
ceros, 150

Salt on a bird’s tail, 149
Satan, 86

Science and the film, 16
Scorpion, eye of the, 113
Sense-organs, 98-104
Senses, the, and sense organs, 95
et seq.

the ten, 95 et seq.

Sensitive plant, the, 92
Serums, injection of, to control
tissue-cells, 193
Sixth sense, so-called, 104

246

GREAT AND SMALL THINGS

Size of wild animals not variable,
202

Slowing down and quickening up,
in cinema pictures, 20-26
Snail, eye of the, 115
Snails from fresh water, 41, 44
Snuff and sneezing, 241
Snuff-stick, the, of Kentucky, 234
Social species of bees, wasps,
ants, and the termites,
independent origin of, 129
Sophocles, chorus from his play,
the “ Antigone,” 88
Spectroscope, 48

Spencer, Herbert, on Progress, 77
Spider-sense, 138
Staggers, a disease of sheep, 69
Sting of the wasp, 127
Stingless bees of South America,
127

Stokes, Sir George, on the absorp¬
tion bands in the spectrum
of light passed through a
solution of blood-red, 50
Strachey, Sir Richard, his story
of a cat and a general, 146
Sympathetic metals and powders,

151

Tape-worms, 68, 69
" Tarantism,” 142
Tarantula, the story of the, 141
Teeth, wisdom, useless, 190
Telepathy, 105, 131

a pretentious name, 145

Thomas, Mr. A. P., discovers life-
history of the liver-fluke,
65. 72. 73

Thought-transference, 135
Tissue-cells, “ nobler ” kind and
others, 191

Toad, poison of the, 144
Tobacco, 233

aroma due to ferment, 238
condemned by King James I
and by Mr. Frederick
Harrison, 236

discovery and importation of,
236

extravagantly praised by the
poet Spenser and the
astologer, Lilly, 236
juice in pipe, is not nicotine, 233
legitimate “ blending ” of, 239
not native in Asia, 237, 239
the various ways of taking, 234
Tobacco-plant, species of, 237
Tongue of the Common Whelk, 42
Twins, “ identical ” and “ ordin¬
ary,” 230
the Siamese, 231
the " Two-headed Nightingale,”

231

Warning colours of wasps, sala¬
manders, and cinnabar
moth’s caterpillars, 126
; Wasps, 123

Wells, Mr. H. G., on cruelty in
Nature, 83

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722

Date Due

CAT. NO. 23 233 PRINTED IN U.S.A.

Q171 -L23

Lankester, Sir Edwin Ray

Great and small things

date

72575

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