VOL. III. | Recent Literature. 177 
not yet been developed. Then any individual ant which varied in 
its nature towards determination in facing an enemy would be a 
great benefit to the tribe, no doubt, but would it stand a better 
chance to survive and leave offspring who would perpetuate this 
tendency? On the contrary, it would be far more apt to be killed 
early in its career, for Mr. Romanes does not need to be reminded 
of the old proverb: \ 
** He who fights and runs away 
May live to fight another day.” 
If every individual who possessed this tendency towards self- 
sacrifice were to be killed off because, as an individual, it was less 
fit to survive, how could the species ever acquire this instinct ? 
After any altruistic variation was well established it is easy to see 
how natural selection might favor the group of individuals possess- 
ing it, whether it be a mere isolated assemblage or an entire species, 
in their combined conflicts with other groups or species which did. 
not work in harmony; but the difficulty is to understand how it 
could become established. The individuals would necessarily con- 
tend among themselves for superiority, and this contest would be 
a more immediate and vital one than the rivalry between allied 
species, or even different sections of the same species. 
The American edition of this work is published in a very neat 
and attractive form. CAE, 
The Contemporary Evolution of Man. By Henry FAIRFIELD 
Osporn.* In this, the first of the Cartwright Lectures for 1892, the 
author presents a general survey of the anatomical changes at 
present taking place in man, with the intention of investigating their 
bearing upon the question of the inheritance of acquired characters. _ 
Dr. Osborn believes that all the organs of the human body are ina 
state of change at the present time, although some are moving 
much more rapidly than others, either progressively or retrogres- 
sively. He proposes the term metatrophism for the ** compensating 
readjustment, whereby the sum of nutrition to any region remains 
the same during redistribution to its parts.’’ He considers that 
man is changing in structure as rapidly at the present time as the 
horse did in evolving from its five-toed ancestor. Variations in the 
skeleton, teeth and muscles are discussed in some detail. Under 
ARE OR TG RO 
* The Am. Nat. xxvi, 455-481. 
