520 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



great risk of losing the reader's confidence straight away. But that the authors 

 of this book are not in touch with modern theories which most deeply concern 

 the fundamental nature of the process of evolution is evident from the following 

 statement : " For some time after the publication of the Origin of Species, Mivart 

 appears to be almost the only man of consequence fully alive to the weak points 

 of the Darwinian theory ; the great majority seem to have been dazzled by 

 its brilliancy." What about Samuel Butler? 



The authors may reply to this criticism that speculative theories, such as those 

 which are associated chiefly with the names of Samuel Butler, Hans Driesch, 

 Richard Semon, Henri Bergson and others, do not fall within their province. To 

 this objection we should reply that no modern book dealing with evolution can 

 be complete without them ; and this brings us again to our original point, namely, 

 that it seems a pity that the extraordinary amount of valuable observation of 

 which these authors are evidently capable should have been curtailed by the 

 expenditure of time and energy which the production of this book must have cost. 

 Again, any modern book on evolution, the authors of which fail to see the 

 significance of the attitude of the biometrical workers to vital phenomena cannot 

 pretend to completeness. There is no reference in the book to the writings of 

 Weldon, and the only reference to the other great exponent of this attitude is 

 contained in the following sentence : "The only Zoologists who had investigated 

 experimentally the question of sexual selection appear to be Karl Pearson and 

 Frank Finn." 



Mendel's Principles of Heredity. By W. Bateson, M.A., F.R.S., V.M.H. 

 [Pp. xiv + 396.] (Cambridge University Press, 1909. Price \2s. bd. net.) 



The title which Prof. Bateson has given to his latest book cannot be considered 

 to be very appropriate : in the first place it is the same as that of the essay which 

 he published in 1902, although the present work is not merely a second edition 

 of the earlier ; in the second place this book is rather a survey of the results 

 of Mendelian investigation up to the present time than a mere exposition of the 

 principles originally formulated by Mendel. It is a mistake not uncommonly 

 made by those who have only a superficial acquaintance with the subject to 

 suppose that Mendelism is limited to the results reached by Mendel or to results 

 of exactly the same kind, which is no more correct than to suppose that modern 

 Lamarckism is identical with the doctrines of Lamarck. The importance of any 

 new doctrine in Biology is to be judged, not by the particular facts on which it 

 was founded or by the exact terms in which it was first expressed, but by its 

 fruitfulness, by the progress to which it leads, the new fields of investigation 

 which it opens up, and the new light it throws on old problems. No one can 

 study Prof. Bateson's book without being impressed with the efficiency of the 

 method and theory of Mendel as means of investigation, the fascinating interest 

 of many of the results obtained, and the promise of still more important dis- 

 coveries in the future. Those, however, who expect to find in this book new 

 light on the main problems of evolution will be to some extent disappointed. 

 The author tells us that in his original plan it was intended to discuss somewhat 

 fully the bearing of the new facts on general problems, but this intention was 

 abandoned and the book is devoted chiefly to the discussion of the concrete 

 facts. He hopes to publish separately at some future time the lectures he gave 

 at Yale University in 1907, in which he considered the relation of Mendelism 



