RECENT ADVANCES IN SCIENCE 3 



must analyse the human mind as the naturalist studies under 

 the microscope the anatomy of a fly. 



To the innumerable works already published on Instinct, one 

 further has been added : What is Instinct? by C. Bingham 

 Newland. 1 The author relates in an attractive way many of 

 the most curious instincts of the commoner birds and insects, 

 and explains them by reference to telepathy, and by a theory of 

 group-minds, by which the actions of animals are controlled 

 more accurately and effectively than by any manifestation of 

 mere individual intelligence. Mr. Newland can scarcely expect 

 biologists to adopt his theory, which attempts to explain what 

 is difficult to understand by a doctrine which is impossible to 

 understand. Though we cannot take the philosophy of this 

 book seriously, yet it constitutes pleasant reading, on account 

 of its original observations and genuine feeling for Nature.. 

 The author has paid special attention to the " bleating " of the- 

 snipe, and reaches the conclusion that it is due not to the tail,. 

 but to the wings. In view of a discussion on the subject which 

 took place at the Zoological Society some years ago, this con- 

 clusion must be looked upon as heterodox. Nevertheless it 

 has more evidence in its support than was then adduced, and it 

 is not improbable that a further change of conviction may 

 take place. 



We are pleased to see that a reprint has been issued by the 

 Cambridge University Press of The Mechanistic Conception of 

 Life, by Jacques Loeb, 2 one of our foremost philosophic natural- 

 ists. Little need be said of this important work, which was 

 fully reviewed on its first publication by the University of 

 Chicago Press. It records the author's experiments in artificial 

 parthenogenesis ; and endeavours to explain various elementary 

 animal activities on a purely mechanistic basis. The book has 

 already received wide attention in this country, and is a stand- 

 ing example of the treatment of philosophic and psychologic 

 problems by scientific methods. We do not perhaps get very 

 far towards explanations ; but an advance at all events is made, 

 and in the direction not of darkness and further mystification, 

 but of light. 



The Open Court Publishing Company has brought out two 



1 Murray, 1916. 



* University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois ; Cambridge University Press, 

 London. 



