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fougasse or dynamite, from which he is equally incapable of defending himself.

3. You may not poison your enemy's drinking-water; but you may infect it with dead bodies or otherwise, because that is only equivalent to turning the stream.

4. You may not kill helpless old men, women, or children with the sword or bayonet; but as much as you please with your Congreve rockets, howitzers, or mortars.

5. You may not make war on the peaceable occupants of a country; but you may burn their houses if they resist your claims to rob them of their uttermost farthing.

6. You may not refuse quarter to an enemy; but you may if he be not equipped in a particular outfit.

7. You may not kill your prisoners of war; but you may order your soldiers not to take any.

8. You may not ask a ransom for your prisoners; but you may more than cover their cost in the lump sum you exact for the expenses of the war.

9. You may not purposely destroy churches, hospitals, museums, or libraries; but "military exigencies" will cover your doing so, as they will almost anything else you choose to do in breach of any other restrictions on your conduct.

Such are some of the practical absurdities into which the reasonings of Grotius and his followers have led us. The real dreamers, it appears, have been, not those who, like Henri IV., Sully, St. Pierre, or Kant, have dreamed of a world without wars, but those who have dreamed of wars waged without lawlessness, passion, or crime. On them be thrown back the taunts of utopianism which they have showered so long on the only view of the matter which is really logical and consistent. On them, at least, rests the shadow, and must rest the reproach, of an egregious failure, unless recent wars are of no account and teach no lesson. And if their failure be real and signal, what remains for those who wish for better things, and for some check on deeds that threaten our civilisation, but to turn their backs on the instructors they once trusted; to light their fires rather than to load their shelves with Grotius, Vattel,and the rest; and to throw in their lot for the future with the opinion, hitherto despised, though it was Kant's, and the endeavour hitherto discredited, though it was Henry the Great's, Sully's, and Elizabeth'sthe opinion, that is, that it were easier to abolish war than to humanize it, and that only in the growth of habits of international confidence lies any possible hope of its ultimate extinction ?

J. A. FARRER.

THE PROBLEMS OF DISTRIBUTION

PERSO

AND THEIR SOLUTION.

PART I.

ERSONS whose acquaintance with the methods of biological study cannot be regarded as either extensive or profound, may nevertheless regard themselves as perfectly capable of detailing exactly and succinctly the four chief points involved in the consideration of any living being. The history of an animal or plant, however superficially that history may be viewed, presents a series of problems which it is the business of the biologist to solve. These problems resolve themselves sooner or later into four questions, the replies to which, if given in full detail, supply us with a perfect knowledge of the present and past life of the organism and its race. Query the first, concerning the living being-animal or plant, monad or man resolves itself into the inquiry, "what is it?" To this question the science of morphology, or that of structure, affords a reply. The external form and the internal anatomy of the organism are investigated under this primary question of the biologist. The animal mechanism and the nature and relations of plant-tissues and organs fall naturally within the scope of this question and its reply. But the organism possesses its vital activities as well as its structural details. In the essence of its nature, it presents for our study those actions through which it maintains its own individual existence, and that of its race or species likewise. A second question thus becomes imperative, and inquires, "how does it live?" To this query it is the province of physiology, as the science of functions, to reply. Summarising the life of any organism, three terms may be found to denote the sum total of its vital activity. It firstly nourishes itself, and thus engages in the exercise of the function of nutrition. It thuswise provides for the maintenance of its individual frame. But as the death of individuals thins out the ranks of the species, the exercise of a second function, that of reproduction, provides for the continuance of the race in time. Then, lastly, the animal or plant, whatever its sphere or place in the organic series, or in the world at large, exhibits certain relations to its surroundings. Deprived of

characteristics. It is the action and reaction of the organism upon the world around it, and its adaptation to its surroundings, which impart to the animal or plant its plainest differences from the

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the means for exhibiting this relationship, the living being becomes practically as the dead things around it. It is the power of relating itself to its environments which gives to the living body its chief

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FIG. 1.

MAP OF THE ZOOLOGICAL PROVINCES.

inorganic things around. Hence we distinguish a third function of the living being; that of innervation or relation. Exercised through the medium of a nervous system or its representative tissues, this function of relation regulates and controls, whilst it connects and harmonises, the other actions of which life's activities consist. The animal or plant, regarded from a physiological standpoint, lives thus a threefold existence, and performs a triple round of duties. It nourishes itself, it reproduces its race, and it develops and exhibits relations with its surroundings. The knowledge which demonstrates how these functions are performed answers the second of our four questions-"how does it live?"

Structure and functions, all-important as their detail may be for the understanding of animal and plant histories, do not, however, constitute or bound the entire range of biological observation. The inquiries of even the childish stage of man's culture concerning the living as well as the non-living universe, include, above all other points, the inquiry, "where is it found?" Especially natural does such a question appear when applied to the living tenants of the globe. When we ask ourselves where any organism is found, in what quarter of the globe it is plentiful, where it is scarce, or where, lastly, it is never to be discovered, we are in reality approaching topics which lead us tolerably near to the ultimate questions of all biological study. It is the science of distribution which professes to answer the questions relating to the whereabouts of animals and plants in the world as it now exists, and in anterior epochs of our globe as well. Distribution thus includes two most natural divisions or lines of inquiry. It summarises the existing life of the globe in its inquiries regarding the geography of living things, or their distribution in space, as it is technically termed; whilst it no less succinctly attempts the solution of the problems relating to the past history of animals and plants, when, proceeding to avail itself of the information collected by geology, it pictures for us their distribution in time.

The knowledge of the structure, functions, and distribution of a living being, once comprehended all that science could hope to know of its history. Contenting itself with the fact that living beings are, biology might regard the knowledge which these three queries, "what," "how," and "where" supplied, as all-sufficient for the furthest mental demands. But the newer epoch of biology includes a fourth question in its list of queries concerning living things. It presents for solution yet another problem, in the terms of which is focussed all the knowledge gained in other departments of biological research. This fourth query is that which demands to know "how

the living being has come to be what it now is" or "how it has attained to its present place and position in the animal or plant series." The mere terms of such a question presuppose that the living population of our globe has undergone progressive development. It postulates change and alteration as natural conditions of existence, and it inquires how, in the case of each animal or plant, such change has operated-in what direction it has sped, and how it has affected and modified the living organism. Thus stated, there can be no difficulty in recognising the theory of evolution or development as that which purports to supply this mental demand, and to reply to the inquiry concerning the past history of animals and plants in relation to their present position and genealogical connections. Time was when the need for such a question was non-existent. So long as mankind regarded the world of life as presenting a fixity of constitution, there could exist no question of wide organic change for the biologist to meet and answer. With a firm and undisturbed belief in the special and independent "creation" of each species of living beings, the mind could experience no philosophic or other. necessity for any inquiry into a past of modification and change. Possessing the idea that stability of organisation and form was the rule of existence, men had not learned to look for a past wherein, as in a glass darkly, might be discerned the birth of new species arising through the modification of the old. But the germ idea of such an evolution of life existed and prevailed long before the age which has seen its full fruition. Here and there evidence is to be found that, even in classic ages, the great problem of problems concerning the how and why of the universe itself was growing apace in the minds. of men. Aristotle, remarking that rain falls not to make the corn grow, any more than it descends to spoil the crops, asks, “what therefore hinders the different parts (of the body) from having this merely accidental relation in nature?" So also Lucretius, in another department of inquiry, shadowed forth the atomic constitution of things, and paved the way for the thoughts of the after ages, when Lamarck, Erasmus Darwin, Goethe, and, in our own day, Charles Darwin, Wallace, and others, have busied themselves with the problems of the development of the teeming population of the globe. Thus arises the philosophic necessity for a fourth question-that of the aetiology or causation of living beings. This question, utilising all the knowledge gained by the sciences of structure, physiology, and distribution, endeavours to show how the organic world has grown and progressed towards the perfection it exhibits before our waiting eyes to-day.

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