68o SCIENCE PROGRESS 



Exactly why such an occasion should have been chosen for a restatement might 

 have been somewhat of a puzzle to the general reader had not the author in his 

 preface and again in the first lecture given a very full explanation. It appears 

 that in the course of a private conversation with a British zoologist certain 

 differences of opinion arose, and hence the Croonian Lectures were chosen as a 

 means of reading a severe admonition to the " Academic Biologist " on his failure 

 to appreciate the work of the medical man. It is to be feared that the reader of 

 this book will have no clearer idea of exactly what is meant by an " Academic 

 Biologist" than the author himself seems to have. This action itself is, in our 

 opinion, in bad taste, and when the preface and appendix proceed to enlarge 

 upon it and give the personal aspect of the quarrel, even to the extent of men- 

 tioning names, we feel that it has set an example of controversial methods 

 unworthy of a scientific man, and has detracted considerably from what is, in 

 many ways, an interesting and vigorous volume. 



The lectures in themselves show some signs of being hurriedly and loosely put 

 together: for example, we find "katalyst" on one page becomes " catalyst " two 

 pages later, and "toxines" on one line appears as "toxins" on the next. These 

 are small matters in themselves but indicative of a careless style that leads to 

 clumsy sentences, as, for example, at the beginning of the last paragraph on 

 P a ge 93, and a failure to make a sentence at all near the top of page 65. The 

 author, as he himself admits, in his lecture made the mistake of using the word 

 "variability" for "variation," and also allowed it to stand when the lecture appeared 

 in print, apparently not noticing it until it was pointed out, and this too in what 

 the author two lines further on regards as the "basal problem of evolution." 

 When we come to examine his arguments also, certain criticisms are obvious. In 

 spite of his quotation from The Principles of Biology, it is still not apparent that 

 he uses the term " direct adaptation " in the same sense that many people consider 

 it was used by Spencer. 



In discussing the acquisition of immunity to certain phytotoxins by rabbits and 

 mice, this power is regarded as a " perfectly clear-cut example of direct individual 

 adaptation," and is taken as fulfilling the following essential conditions {inter 

 alia): 1. "We deal with the acquirement of a new property; the acquirement 

 cannot possibly be regarded as the calling into activity of a property previously 

 possessed, either by the individual or by the species : this power to neutralise ricin 

 is something absolutely new." 3. "There can be no possibility of ascribing the 

 new property to the persistence of a chance variation : the power to develop 

 antiricin.and discharge it into the blood can be produced by any mouse or rabbit 

 with absolute certainty." 



Now, surely if such a chemical or physiological response can be obtained 

 "with absolute certainty" from "any mouse or rabbit" we cannot possibly be 

 dealing with "something absolutely new"— the production of a property not 

 "previously possessed." The third condition therefore to a certain extent con- 

 tradicts the first, and if such a power is exhibited by all members of the species 

 under the same conditions, it is a misuse of words to say that we are dealing with 

 the development of something new— a new character. The only thing that is new 

 is the demonstration that under certain conditions all mice and all rabbits have 

 the power to exhibit a biochemical reaction. If all members of both species show 

 precisely the same power, then it is obvious that ft is a potentiality or character 

 present in the species all the time, but only made manifest under the abnormal 

 conditions of the experiment. In no way can it be regarded as "something 

 positive, something additional," to use the words of condition 2 ; it is simply the 



