REVIEWS 701 



A long series of reviews of biological and hydrographical literature, and a 

 number of notices relative to the organisation and work of biological stations and 

 institutes, completes the contents of the Revue. We are sure that this publication 

 will be of great service to those engaged in hydrobiological research, and that it 

 will, as Sir John Murray remarks in his introductory article, " contribute greatly 

 towards the elucidation of the many unsolved oceanographical problems." 



J. Johnstone. 



Heredity. By J. Arthur Thomson. [Pp. xvi. -f 605.] (London : John Murray, 



1908. Q..y. net.) 

 This is certainly the best modern book on heredity to recommend to the student 

 and to the intelligently curious. It is, in fact, the only book on heredity which is 

 not controversial. Mr. Punnett's "Mendelism" is, as frankly announced in the title, 

 devoted strictly to Mendelism. Mr. Lock's "Variation Heredity and Evolution" 

 deals almost exclusively with Mendelism ; other topics are dealt with, but not with 

 sympathy, especially in the case of biometry. Mr. Bateson's researches have 

 made his "Mendel's Principles" out of date. The numerous papers on heredity 

 which have appeared in the pages of Biometrika are consistently antagonistic to 

 Mendelism. And in Dr. Archdall Reid's " Principles of Heredity," a great and 

 constructive work, very little sympathy with either of these schools will be found. 

 Mendel's idea is proclaimed by his adherents as the most valuable tool which 

 has so far been placed in the hands of the breeder of animals and plants : yet in 

 De Vries' "Plant Breeding" no reference to Mendelian work is to be found. Prof. 

 Thomson's book gives a comprehensive and readable account of the main facts 

 of heredity, and a critical but unbiassed account of the more important theories 

 which have been put forward to account for them. The author has looked on 

 well-nigh every aspect of this vast subject, and, having no gospel to preach, has 

 been very just in the amount of space which he has devoted to the various sections. 

 And the expectation, based on Prof. Thomson's previous works, that this book will 

 be clearly and forcibly written is fulfilled. We could have no better guarantee that 

 Prof. Thomson's criticism is unbiassed than the fact that he does not belong to any 

 of those modern schools of biological thought whose mutual antagonism has done so 

 much to clear the air and to reveal the real nature of the problems which we have 

 to solve. But we do not wish to convey the impression that our author is a mere 

 mechanical compiler ; on the contrary, current notions are analysed and current 

 misunderstandings are exposed with a degree of penetration which can only be the 

 result of much careful deliberation and thought. His attitude to the more 

 fundamental aspects of the question appears to us to be very sound. If he errs 

 at all, he errs in the direction of excessive caution ; but, in our opinion, at the present 

 moment this is not an error ; and we hope it will serve to counteract that lack of 

 self-mistrust which characterises too many of our modern investigators of natural 

 processes. We heartily sympathise with the philosophy which prompts the state- 

 ment "that to speak of the 'Principle of Heredity' in organisms- is like speaking 

 of the ' Principle of Horologity in clocks.' And we are firmly convinced that the 

 sooner we get rid of such verbiage the better for clear thinking, since heredity is 

 certainly no power, or force, or principle, but a convenient term for the relation 

 of organic or genetic continuity which binds generation to generation." 



Omissions in a book of this small compass there must be, of course, as the author 

 frankly regrets to be the case. But considering that such widely different topics as 

 Reversion, Telegony, The Transmission of Acquired Characters, The Inheritance 

 of Disease, The Biometric Study of Heredity, Mendelism, The Inheritance of Sex 



