Page:Science vol. 5.djvu/331

 �SCIENCE.

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��FRlDAy, APRIL 17,

��COMMENT AND CRITICISM.

The PLBLi cation of Prof. A. Graham Bell's final memoir upon the t'onoation of a deaf variety of the human race shows the extent and thoroughness of his investigation, which has already led to [jractical results in shaping, in cei'tniD states, the public economy in regard to deaf-mutes (Science, v. 207). To meet the claims of our readere, we brieBy recapitulate Professor Hell's course of argument. lie shows, 1°, that there is a. marked groupiug of deaf-mutes into families, certain siirnameB recurring frequently, and that the proportion and number of congenitally deaf mutes has in- increaaed in America, therefore the cause is probably an increasing hereditarj' tendency; a", that, of the deaf-mutes who marry at the present time, not less than eighty per cent marry deaf-mutes, while, of those who married during the early half of the present century, the proportion who married deaf-mutes was much smaller; 3°, that children having deaf- mute relatives are more likely to be congeni- tally deaf-mute than the children of the people at large (to illustrate this fact, he gives de- tailed accounts of several families) ; 4°, that the indications derived from the study of the actual census-tables are, that the congenital deaf-mutes of the countrj- are increasing at a greater rate than the [wpulation at large, and the deaf-mute children of deaf-mutes at a greater ral« than the congenital deaf-mute population; 5°, that the intermarriage of deaf- mutes is mainly fostered by bringing the deaf- mutes together in institutions, and isolating them thereby, and by teaching them a lan- guage (of signs) the people at large do not

��Professor Bell, therefore, regards the philau- tbropic etforts which have heeu made to ame-

��liorate the condition of deaf-mutes as the direct cause of an increase in the number of these tmfortunates. A good purpose is the father of an evil result. What a strange an- tithesis ! How striking the im[)ortant lesson it teaches us of the elHcieney of the scienliBc spirit as a guide in practical affairs, — that spirit which obtains thorough knowledge, and follows out lo the end the analysis of cause and effect! The scientific mind, in its best form, is equipt>ed to discover, to derive from new premises their legitimate conclusion : it is reason at its maximum power. This is not the first time that the inventor of the telephone has proved the elHciency of a mind of this quality in achie\'ing results of immediate and far-reaching importance, and added new dig- nity lo science in the estimation not only of thouglitful persons, but also of practical- mind- ed Americans.

The uocruiNE that the bodiesof all the higher plants and animals are aggregations of myriads of minute, and in many respects independent, cells, had its origin some fifty years ago. Though now universally accepted bj' biologists as an essentially correct generalization, it has not yet become one of those scientific facts widely known to, and accepted by, the general educated public. To the ■ average man," the thousands of inici'oscopic masses of liWng matter, each of which lives its life in more of less harmony with the rest, but to a great ex- lent without any reference to them, is an as- toutiding one. lie Rnds it nearly impossible to realize that in certain rcsiiects he is rather a natiou than an individual: that his bodily life is the algebraical sum of the living and doing of hundreds of thousands of cells, much as the vitalit_v and activity of a nation is the resultant of the actions of all its mhabitanta. His physical life is to him an entity. Id con- sequence, there is nothing which the physiolo-
 * )ropoaition that his body is a collection of

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