XI.

AUTOMATIC AND INFLUENTIAL NERVES.

PRELUDE ON CURRENT EVENTS.

It is sometimes sneeringly affirmed that colleges teach little but the art of finding where knowledge is; and yet that is a great and difficult art. In the froth-oceans of weak books, it is a high service to point out to a hurried man, on any interesting theme, the most serviceable volumes. What are the dozen best English, and what the dozen best German books on biology? In response to many inquiries, verbal and written, let me attempt an answer to this rather formidable question. There are few or no good books on biology older than 1860. Remember that the microscope did not attain its power to furnish facts of a scientific character for the basis of research till 1838. So fast has the study of living tissues progressed, that it may be said that all the conclusions reached before 1860 either have been or will be modified. I therefore can recommend to you nothing older than 1860, except an author or two like Schleiden and Schwann, who began the investigations of living tissues, and whose works are to be examined for their interest as historical documents. On this

theme, as on so many other philosophical matters, the best books are German; but take first the English in the order of their merit :

1. Beale, Dr. Lionel S., "Protoplasm; or, Matter and Life." Third edition: London, G. & A. Churchill; Philadelphia, Lindsay & Blackiston, 1875.

The style of this work is attractive for its clearness, grace, and force, and occasionally for a keen, logical humor. It is not always that a physician has literary capacity; but Lionel Beale is a good and almost a brilliant writer. Besides, he has had a liberal training in logic and metaphysics, and seems to have grasped philosophy as a whole very fully. But the charm of his book is in the luminousness, vivacity, and power produced by his stalwart grasp of his theme as an origin discoverer. No doubt he has added more to the knowledge of living tissues than any living English author within the last twenty-five years. It does not become me to state here what precautions I have taken to know that I have not been misled in seeking authorities on biology; but I have taken precautions of a most merciless sort, and continue to take them, and all my precautions end in giving me more and more confidence in Beale as a man of candor and sense as well as of science. If you can buy the productions of but two authors on biology, purchase the works of Beale as the best that the English language offers you, and those of Frey as the best that the translated German at present affords.

2. Frey, Professor Heinrich, Zurich, "Manual of

Histology," Leipzig, 1867; and "Compendium of Histology," Zurich, 1876. Translated by Dr. George R. Cutter. New York: Putnam Sons, 1876. Frey's two works are by common consent placed now at the head of German works on histology.

3. Drysdale, Dr. John, "The Protoplasmic Theory of Life." London, 1874. This work of an Edinburgh physician, and president of the Liverpool Microscopical Society in 1874, seems to stand third in order of importance. It does not adopt Beale's conclusions as to vital force; but it accepts his facts, and makes a strenuous and futile effort to reconcile them with what is called the theory of stimulus.

4. Ferrier, Dr. David, "The Functions of the Brain." London and New York, 1876. This work is indispensable to any one who does not read German books on biology.

5. Tyson, Dr. James, "History of the Cell Doctrine."

6. Carpenter, Dr. W. B., “Mental Physiology." London and New York; 1874.

7. Beale, Dr. Lionel S., "How to Work with the Microscope." New edition. Philadelphia, 1877.

8. Köllicker, "Manual of Human Histology." Translated by George Bush and Professor Huxley for the Sydenham Society, 1853.

9. Huxley, Professor T. H., art. on Biology in ninth edition of " Encyclopædia Britannica.”

10. Carpenter, "Human Physiology," ninth edition, 1876.

· 11. Draper, Professor J. W., "Human Physiology," 1856.

12. Dalton, Professor John C., "Human Physiology," edition of 1875.

Here is a list of twelve German authors:

1. Lotze, Hermann, "Mikrokosmus," 3 vols, 1873. Lotze was born at Bautzen in 1817. He was graduated at Leipzig in 1834, in both philosophy and medicine. In 1842 he became professor of philosophy at the University of Leipzig, but since 1844 has been professor of philosophy at the University of Göttingen. His collected works are to be recommended as all bearing on biology. (See art. on "Hermann Lotze," in July number of Mind, 1876.)

2. Ulrici, "Gott und die Natur." Halle, 1873. "Gott und der Mensch." Leipzig, 1874.

3. Stricker," Handbuch der Lehre von der Geweben des Menschen und der Thiere. Leipzig, 1868. 4. Häckel, "Generelle Morphologie der Organismen," 1866.

5. Schultze, Max, "Protoplasma der Rhizopoden," 1863. Read all of Schultze's works.

6. Neumann, "Ueber d. Zusammenhang sog. Molecularen mit dem Leben des Protoplasma;" Du BoisReymond and Reichert's "Arch.," 1867.

7. Kölliker, "Neue Untersuchungen," &c., 1861. 8. Kuhne, W., "Untersuch. über das Protoplasma,” 1864.

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9. Helmholtz, “ Handbuch der physiol. Optik." 10. Wundt, Physiologie des Menschen.

11. Hitzig, "Untersuchungen über das Gehirn." 12. Du Bois-Reymond, Ueber die thierische Electricität.