In conclusion, let it be remembered that the facts of nature are the only court of final appeal in science. Theories must always be either destroyed and cast away, or immortalised, by facts alone. Twenty years in the future will doubtless do for scientific knowledge in all directions what twenty years in the past have done that is, modify much that is now rigidly held. But the broader the basis of fact on which a scientific generalisation is established, the less the probability of its being supplanted or even modified by succeeding facts. The scientific mind should, and would, find no difficulty in receiving Heterogenesis if it represented a fact in nature. But with the vast area of facts that absolutely oppose it, as definitely settled as the specific gravity of gold; and with the crude and undigested "evidence" brought by its advocates in its favour, we may scarcely anticipate that uncertainty or caprice in vital development, or a new power in "protoplasm" to disregard its inherited tendencies, will be amongst the facts that will make the light of human knowledge brighter in the years to come. to law, every realm of nature is at one. life, the obedience is the most intense, because demonstrably subject to the highest and most wide-reaching of all lawsEvolution. In their obedience But in the realm of D. MARPLES AND CO., LIMITED, PRINTERS, LORD STREET, LIVERPOOL. EUL: testa subulato-pyramidali, ventricosa, acuminata, solida, nitida, alba, apice flexuosa; anfractibus brevibus, convexiusculis, numerosis, planulatis; sutura impressa; varicibus impressis oblique continuis; apertura ovali, columella incrassata, antice reflexa, labro in medio producto. Long. 20, lat. 8 lin. This is the largest shell in the genus Eulima, and appears to me to be distinct, but as I have only seen one specimen, I cannot say how far the distinctive character may prove to be permanent. Sowerby's Eul. grandis is only 6 lines broad. The nearest shell, in both form and character, with which we can compare our specimen, is the Eulima Martinii, A. Ad., from which the shell before us differs in its larger size, rounder and shorter whorls, and in the varices not extending to the apex. The specimen was obtained by Surgeon-major S. Archer, from a captain at Singapore. The locality is unknown. JULY 4th, 1880. F. P. MARRAT, Scientific Staff, Free Public Museum, Liverpool. |