New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1894-07-22

book illustrates the legitimate tendency OF moo'
ern thought to find mental processes in the low
est organisms. He puts the meaning OF recent
observation and inference in axiom when ne
SAYS Living matter Is always psychic. Inc
rudiments of feeling and possibly even OF VIII,
may be found in plants. Some plants are so SEN
sitive that they faint at touch, they respond 10
stimulus and the so-caled carnvorous plants
seem almost incapable Of design. a. least IN
stinct. The evolution Of animals fills UP the his
tory OF mind without a break from plants TO
man himself. so that from bottom TO top there ~
nothing greater than the living cell. the steps
in progress being First. single cells with .
psychic factor and conscious of their own simple
activities: then colonies Of such cells pervaded
by a feIlow-feeling; then communities federally
united and with a communal consciousness, the
individual ce1l-mind now tending 10 work auto
matically: then communities In which some cells
are set apart TO feel think and will for all the
Resin short with nothing less than veritable
government Such government is man. There
would seem TO be as little room here as In the
mechanical theory for mind without body. The
one Is as composite as the other. If body 10
made UP of cells. mind is msde up OF cell func-
tons and when the cells TO act together In
their corporate capacity the function they were
fitted 10 perform ceases TO be performed. Rough
~ speaking that is death. But Dr. Arthur
Mines Marshall, the microscopic endeavored IN
one of his posthumous essays to make more
minute study of death than this meagre defni-
ton would imply. At the bottom Of the scale OF
life II is not easy to see that death occurs al
all An amoeba, for example, reproduces by
simply dividing into two In such an act OF fs-
sion the parent generation disappears but moth
ing has died. So in the metazoa, even the
highest. 1t is not the individual cells that disap-
pear but the organism. and II Is true OF every
species that there Is an absolute continuity or
living material. Nevertheless. IL has been shown
by the experiments Of Maupas with infusoria
that literal death preceded by disease and NAL
formation and various indications OF senilty is
the direct result of long-continued ccll-division
providing the progeny of single cell are kept
from communication with others OF the species.
Death. then. Mr.. Marshall he'd 10 be neither
an intrinsic necessity of life nor Of organization.
but Of the species. The individual disappears 10
make room FOR others. and the length Of It's he
is measured approximately by the need Of per-
petuatng the species. The author extended the
statement that no protozoon has lost an
cestor by death by adding: There Is not a sim
gle component cell in the body OF a metazoon
that has ever lost an ancestor by death" The
general inference from this is that death as IA
miar TO mankind is merely the breaking OF the
bond which untes groups Of cells and ce-func-
tons together
Another essay by Or. Marshall explains the
processes # embryology by which living Great
ures at the present day reproduce in their
growth the steps in evolution passed by remote
ancestors. that between protoplasm and per
lection even man himself betrays his relation
ship to fishes. reptiles. birds and quadrupeds.
He shows that the resemblances between EN-
bryonic evolution and that OF species are rather
approximate than otherwise; that in the one
case only a few Of the changes are recorded
which must have taken place in the other ana
that many embryonic transformations could
never have taken place In real ne ut all. The
most important distinction is that the embryo
could not maintain Independent existence
through certain stages 81 It's growth. But II this
defect had ever characterized It's ancestors in
post-embryonlc lfe. the species would have dis
appeared For example. an embryo dognsh al
one stage II It's growth has no gullet. But dog
fishes that had 70 swallow their food must al
ways have had an open passage by which they
could swallow; otherwise they would have
starved In other essays. FOR example 10 that on
The Shapes and Sizes Of Animals" Or. Mar
shall discussed briefly points which are illustrat
cd Indirectly by the letter-press and the pictures
Of Mr. Hutchinson's book on the animals which
are known now only by their fossil remains. He
observed that IN spite Of the great size attained
by certain fishes and reptiles. the real giants
past and present have been the mammals. and
he noted that In different geological periods df
ferent groups OF mammals have taken the lead
in point Of size and then have wholly disappear
eh or have dwnded. as In the Of the eden
tates. represented once by the huge glyptodon
and the still larger megathr'ium. but now by
creatures Of small size. Comparing the past
with the present. 1t should be remembered that
the largest animal probably that ever lived Is
still alive in the whale The relies Of the zeugo-
don cetode, found In Alabama. while they show
how numerous such creatures were In other
DAYS do not show that they attained the size
of individuals captured in recent times 1t seem,
curious freak Of authorship to associate the
whale in the same chapter with the wombat as
Mr.. Hutchinson does; but the Juxtapostion Is
merely matter Of convenience. The story OF
the discovery Of a fossil wombat in Australia
large as bullock reminds one Of the bit Of folk
lore which attempts 10 explain the present small
size OF this animal II Is said that the animals
agreed that the sun was too hot and that II
should be prevented from rising. Various other
creatures tried to bind 10 lumnary, but were all
burned to death. Finally the wombat succeeded.
but from being Of the largest animals
earth shr!veied by the heat 10 its present in
significance. Mr.. Hutchinson surveys In popu-
lar manner the fossil domain. experimenting his
previous work. not without some repetition here
and there, nor without the aid Of the descriptive
and illustrative Imagination II will hardly be
before geology has practically exhausted It's field
that certainty can be attained respecting some
Of the creatures depicted in this book. Except
In the case Of the horse. where. thanks to Pro-
fessor Marsh and others. the chain is complete.
there is little effort to apply the theory Of evou
ton Indeed, Mr.. Hutchinson Is sceptical as to
the relations Of dinosaurs and birds. In a chap
ter on the dinosaurs discovered by Professor
Marsh he argues against the conjecture Of Pro-
fessor Huxley that dinosaurs and birds were de-
rived from a common ancestor He incnes