THE SPECTRE OF VITALISM 457 



acquired characters." The theory suggested is very elaborate 

 and would be interesting but for the circumstance that in point 

 of fact acquired characters are not found to be inherited. This 

 of course the author denies. He has undoubtedly spent great 

 pains and labour in presenting the subject to his readers : yet 

 his arguments are the old ones with which all biologists are 

 familiar. 1 find no new facts brought out : what is new is a 

 certain amount of a priori speculation. There has never been 

 any lack of a priori justifications for the inheritance of acquired 

 characters. Rignano's seems to me as good as any one else's : 

 though in view of the absence of evidence, this theory-building 

 is rather a waste of time. The author somewhat discredits his 

 judgment by affirming at the beginning of his book that the 

 principal object of biology is a search for the nature of the vital 

 principle. 



The next book is one by Mr. L. G. Sarjant, entitled Is the 

 Mind a Coherer ? Its opening sentence is somewhat startling: 

 " Do you ever go out of your mind, reader ? " A perusal of the 

 succeeding pages serves to suggest that the question would be 

 more pertinent if addressed to the author than to the reader. 

 After fifty pages we come to the point : " I ask you, reader, ' Is 

 the mind a coherer?' ' I do not know,' you reply.' " In point 

 of fact, I reply that I do know : but suppose that I profess ignor- 

 ance, the author goes on to define a coherer, lest his readers 

 should not know what it is. He tells us that it is " an instru- 

 ment, an effect in which can be produced only and solely 

 declaring itself and fulfilling its purpose as an effect in coherence 

 when it bears witness to that similar effect, in a similar instru- 

 ment produced, which, howsoever produced, was of it the 

 exciting cause." On the next page he adds that although he 

 may be wrong in his interpretation of science, he is seeking, not 

 to be right or wrong but to be clear. The reader, now armed 

 with exact knowledge as to the nature of coherers, has no further 

 excuse for failing to understand the problem at issue. But alas! 

 I can find no facts in the remainder of the work bearing on the 

 question as to whether the mind is a coherer or not. It has 

 struck me however that the author's purpose is not that of 

 answering the question which he has raised but that he is 

 genuinely anxious to know whether or not the mind is a coherer 

 and has hit upon the present method of obtaining an answer. I 



