REVIEWS 173 



schools of thought. For some time he had been dissatisfied with the present 

 state of biology and contemplated writing a book advocating a new point of view 

 from which to regard evolutionary problems. Two of the four chapters, mainly 

 critical, were completed, the third only very roughly sketched, and the fourth, 

 which was to be constructive and would have been particularly interesting, was 

 unfortunately never started. The finished chapters and various odd jottings have 

 been printed here, and to them has been added reprints of a number of his less 

 accessible papers on theoretical topics. It is sad that he was unable to finish the 

 book, as whether one agreed with him or not, anything he had to say was always 

 of interest and presented in an attractive way. At one time he greatly favoured 

 Mendelism, but in later years he came under the influence of the writings of 

 Samuel Butler and Henri Bergson, as can be clearly seen in reading these pages. 

 The various essays thus give a very clear indication of the development of his 

 ideas, for he was always quite frank in his writings. He will be missed by many 

 friends, and we are glad to find that some of the charm and whimsicality of his 

 attractive personality has been preserved in this book, particularly in his fable 

 and in the introduction. 



C. H. O'D. 



Form and Function, a Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology. By 

 E. S. Russell, M.A., B.Sc, F.Z.S. [Pp. ix + 383, with 15 illustrations.] 

 (London : John Murray, 1916. Price 10s. 6d. net.) 



The author of this volume sets out to solve the old problem of whether form 

 precedes function or vice versd. He does not bring forward any new morpho- 

 logical or physiological observations, but, as he states in the title, deals with the 

 subject in its historical aspect. After a longer or shorter period there comes a 

 time in all sciences when an historical review of the main theories is desirable, and 

 that time had certainly been reached in morphology, so that the appearance of 

 the book is timely. It is a salutary thing for workers in a subject, who must 

 of necessity be limited to an intimate knowledge of but a comparatively small 

 field, to look back in a more general way over a wider area. The present work is 

 very useful in that it renders this a comparatively easy task, and is valuable 

 because it has been thoroughly and reliably carried out. The few errors that 

 occur, e.g. " no slightest " for not the slightest, p. 264, and the constant reference 

 to Rathke's work on the development of the "adder? pp. 137, 144, 150, 152, 153 

 and 156, whereas the form dealt with was Coluber (i.e. Tropidonotus) natrix, the 

 ordinary grass snake, are of detail and do not affect the main thesis of the book. 



In the preface the author states that " In the course of this book I have not 

 hidden my own sympathy with the functional attitude," and we constantly find 

 this point of view introduced, and sometimes somewhat unnecessarily. To take 

 one illustration, it is stated that to Schwann the cell was not a "morphological 

 concept at all, but a physiological." Surely, as far as can be gathered from his 

 works, it is as much one as the other, no more physiological than morphological, 

 but essentially both. The author passes severe strictures on M dogmatic material- 

 ism," which will probably meet with approval, but we are not sure that dogmatic 

 vitalism is not worse, for its very " mysteriousness " tends to prevent inquiry into 

 the cause of phenomena. 



The earlier more strictly historical parts of the book, starting with the Greeks 

 and continuing, are excellent, but towards the end, where it enters into the realm 

 of recent work, it is a little less satisfactory. A great point is made of the insuffi- 

 ciency of Palaeontological evidence, and we personally always get suspicious when 



