1899] A MODEL FLORA 291 



of mere casuals are mentioned either as having been personally observed or 

 recorded in the past. The flora proper is accompanied by an all too short 

 physico-botanical account of Wirral (unfortunately the only hundred so treated), 

 a short account of the Bucklow hundred, and a bibliography of Cheshire 

 botany. J- A. Terras. 



TELEOLOGY. 



Elemente der empirischen Teleologie. By Paul Nikolaus Cossmann. 8vo, 

 132 pp. Stuttgart: A. Zimmer's Verlag (Ernst Mohrmann), 1899. 

 Price 4 marks. 



There are some biologists who think, or who speak as if they thought, that 

 teleology is a vestigial organ in culture — a way of looking at things which has 

 had its day, and must gradually cease to be. Purposive structure and function 

 — adaptation in short — they admit, but Darwinism has supplied the " mechani- 

 cal explanation," and teleology is an irrelevancy. To others it seems that in 

 biology we have not yet got very far in discovering the causal chains, the last 

 link of which is an adaptation, and that even if we had got much further, we 

 should have reached only a formulation in simpler terms. To these, teleology 

 appears no irrelevancy, but a necessity of thought. Far from destroying teleo- 

 logy, Darwinism has rather deepened it. 



The author of this book is an ardent teleologist, who seeks to show how 

 difficult it is for us even in our scientific phraseology to get away from teleo- 

 logical conceptions, and how partial the outlook is which rests satisfied with 

 chains of cause and effect. In working out these, the teleological idea is irrele- 

 vant and even inhibitive ; for their development as parts of an intellectual 

 system it is, however, necessary, since so-called scientific explanations are not 

 explanations at all. The book is full of quotations and illustrations intended 

 to show the difficulty of eliminating teleological conceptions from biology, and 

 the utility of appreciating them. It might be described as a plea for a franker 

 recognition of the purposive, and should be interesting to students of " Methoden 

 lehre " and the philosophy of biology. X. 



A FALSE ANALOGY ? 



La sp^cificite cellulaire, ses consequences en biologie generale. By L. Bard. 

 Professeur a la Faculte de medecine de Lyon. (Scientia. No. I.) 100 

 pp. Paris: Georges Carre et C. Naud, 1899. Price 2 francs. 



In the young organism, or young organ, there is often apparent uniformity 

 among the component cells. As observed by our methods, they show no hint 

 of the variety of cellular type which will gradually arise among their descend- 

 ants. Many biologists have described this early state as one of " cellular 

 indifference," and have ascribed the subsequent differentiation to the variety of 

 cellular environment which ensues as the elements become more numerous. 

 But this way of looking at the facts does not commend itself to Professor L. 

 Bard, who has since 1885 been insisting on what he calls "la specificite cellu- 

 laire." According to this view the various types of cell in the body are like 

 different species with a common ancestor ; one cannot be transformed into 

 another ; their differentiation is not a function of their environment, but an 

 expression of their inherited properties. Yirchow's famous formula has, he 

 says, to be modified into " Omnis cellula e cellula ejusdem naturae." 



He admits that his theory has not been welcomed by histologists, but he 

 takes heart in detecting a gradual loss of confidence in the theory of cellular 

 indifference. A final triumph, he tells us repeatedly, awaits his doctrine, and 

 he has no patience with eclectics who would recognise that the early indiffer- 



