1899] THE METABOLISM OF THE SEA 345 



sub-tropical seas are relatively poor in plankton, while the arctic seas 

 are relatively rich. How different the terrestrial conditions are, we all 

 know. That plants need light and warmth is also a familiar fact, and 

 yet if Hensen's results are trustworthy we have to face the conclusion 

 that the richest plankton is in the dark, cold arctic seas. Brandt 

 finds a provisional solution of the riddle in the theory that the low 

 temperature hinders the action of the denitrifying bacteria, and that 

 the colder waters are therefore richer than those in the tropics, where 

 the waste of the precious nitrogenous substances is wanton. 



The Organism and the State. 



Biology, according to Professor Oscar Hertwig, is pre-eminently the 

 science of the organism, " die Lehre vom Organismus," and as such 

 it has some light to throw on " Sozialwissenschaft," which has the 

 social organism as its central problem. That this familiar thesis should 

 form the subject of a " Festrede " in the University of Berlin may be 

 of value in convincing the narrow-minded that the boundaries between 

 the various sciences are mainly artificial adaptations to intellectual 

 convenience, and that no science can rise to its full dignity in isolation. 

 The address (" Die Lehre vom Organismus," etc. Gustav Fischer, 

 Jena, 1899, pp. 36) is characterised by Hertwig's usual clearness, and 

 its leading thought is this — the problem of the organism has been 

 attacked by three methods, each essential and each partial ; there is 

 the method of chemical analysis, the method of physical analysis, and 

 the method of " anatomical-biological " analysis ; the first shows us the 

 organism as a " tourbillon " of chemical molecules, the second reveals 

 a series of transformations of energy, but the third method is necessary 

 if we are not to lose the gist of the whole matter that the organism is 

 a unified organisation capable of effective response to the order of 

 nature. Devotion to one particular line of analysis has in the history 

 of biology often led to partial truths which have been errors ; it 

 behoves us to seek to free ourselves from such partiality, and not for 

 the sake of biology only, but because of its relation to social science. 



A Tail in place of a Head. 



There is a certain fascination in the subject which Professor Weismann 

 discussed in our last number. The phenomena of regeneration are 

 often surprising and sometimes quaint, and the interpretation of them 

 as adaptive gives pleasing scope for ingenuity. Whether this inter- 

 pretation, which Weismann has so powerfully defended, be correct or 

 not, time will show ; meanwhile each fresh fact is a gain, and one of 



