The Science of Tickline.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5068, 29 September 1894, Page 6

The Science of Tickline.

The deadly dulness of the British Association is occasionally relieved by some bizarre subject, and this wsb the case last month, according to our London correspondent, when Dr Louis Bobinson read a paper on' "The Anthropological Significance of Tickliahness." Fortunately this is a topio full of absorbing interest to both sexes, and especially to the young, all over the world. The fact that it mu.t be of anthropological origin ia to some extent estafc--listed by the fondness of even the " yoOßg monkey " at echool for this speoiei of: amusement. The doctor nuist have hatf this in his mind when he placed his little son on the table to illustrate the theory! When he made the confesßion a little later on that he had for a number of years exn perimented upon every young animal; biped and quadruped— of course strictly in , the interests of abstract soience— he at once produced a considerable impression upon '_, number of his fair hearers. He held that ticklishness was probably * 'veatijs'nt V- 5 past phase of the hnman race, anothes. aspect of the origin of speoies. Se had found in tickling the orang-outang and the chimpanzee that the same effect' wai produced as on the ohild, except that their laughter was almost silent, and they usually made the pretence of biting their playmateß like the puppy. From the faot that the most ticklish parts were the mott exposed to attack, he held that tickling was a natural instinct as a preparation lat the battle of life, and that " man in hip childhood showed he retained a Bpeoial nervous machinery which enabled him to meet the attacks of his rivals in love, Of hiß competitors for power." This is oni* a new way of stating a commonly known natural fact. But there was one glaringly weak point in the doctor's ingenious theory* < He thought the fact that ticklishness was observed in men and monkeys and not ia beetles, was scientific evidence of relation* *. ship between the two former. Bnt tiok« lishness is also observed in a donkey, and > it might as well be argued that the differ* ence between donkeys and men is only - one of a few removes. Certainly even the casual observer can trace some degree of resemblance between "Neddy" and some men, and if the British Association were to waste muoh of its own time and that of the public on suoh subjeots as "The Anthropological Significance of Tioklish. ness," the theory of f The Descent of • Man" would receive f reßh development.