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chi Roland St John Mulligan. Lastly at the head of the board
was the young poet who found a refuge from his labours of
pedagogy and metaphysical inquisition in the convivial at-
mosphere of Socratic discussion, while to right and left of
him were accommodated the flippant prognosticator, fresh
from the hippodrome, and that vigilant wanderer, soiled by
the dust of travel and combat and stained by the mire of an
indelible dishonour, but from whose steadfast and constant
heart no lure or peril or threat or degradation could ever
efface the image of that voluptuous loveliness which the in-
spired pencil of Lafayette has limned for ages yet to come.
It had better be stated here and now at the outset that the
perverted transcendentalism to which Mr S. Dedalus’ (Div.
Scep.) contentions would appear to prove him pretty badly
addicted runs directly counter to accepted scientific meth-
ods. Science, it cannot be too often repeated, deals with
tangible phenomena. The man of science like the man in
the street has to face hardheaded facts that cannot be blink-
ed and explain them as best he can. There may be, it is true,
some questions which science cannot answer—at present—
such as the first problem submitted by Mr L. Bloom (Pubb.
Canv.) regarding the future determination of sex. Must we
accept the view of Empedocles of Trinacria that the right
ovary (the postmenstrual period, assert others) is respon-
sible for the birth of males or are the too long neglected
spermatozoa or nemasperms the differentiating factors or
is it, as most embryologists incline to opine, such as Cul-
pepper, Spallanzani, Blumenbach, Lusk, Hertwig, Leopold
and Valenti, a mixture of both? This would be tantamount