CORRESPONDENCE 



To THE Editor of " Science Progress " 



SYMBIOSIS 



From H. Reinheimer 



Dear Sir, — Kindly allow me to reply briefly to the review of my book on 

 Symbiosis, a Socio-physiological Study of Evolution, in your issue for April. 



(a) I have not stated that " all plants whose pollen causes hay-fever are 

 useless weeds," but merely (on medical authority) that the majority are. 



(6) I have not overlooked self -fertilisation, but merely considered it as 

 inferior in progressive evolution to cross-fertilisation. 



Perhapsyour reviewerwould have been better pleased if (in myprimitiveness) 

 I had fastened upon exceptions rather than upon rules, because this would 

 have rendered it easier for him to brand me as one whose twenty years of 

 scientific work is " based upon half-truths with their pernicious verisimilitude." 



(c) I have not declared, as is imputed, that wild races are exempt from 

 losses of " factors." On the contrary, I have asserted it. Domestic races I 

 regard as deficient not qua domestic, but because they are over-exploited. 

 Wild species are not immune qua wild, but in so far as theirs is normal meta- 

 bolism. 



(d) My hypothesis does not resolve itself into a question of the superiority, 

 if any, of Cystococcus symbiotic over Cystococcus growing freely. Your reviewer 

 admits I am giving an extended meaning to symbiosis. Why, then, should 

 he pin me down to the narrow morphological view, which I consider inadequate 

 and obsolete ? My view is that a symbiotic is generally superior in avail 

 towards life to a parasitic relation. 



(e) According to your reviewer, my view that predatory animals or plants 

 are more subject to parasitism than others " will scarcely bear a moment's 

 investigation." 



With regard to this I will merely say that, whilst he has, of course, a 

 right to his opinion, I do not feel in the least shaken in my own by his ipse 

 dixit, 



Yours faithfully, 



H, Reinheimer. 

 May 2, 192 1. 



To the Editor of " Science Progress " 



OPTICAL PROJECTION 



From R. S. Wright, M.I.E.E. 



Dear Sir, — I hardly know how far it may be within the bounds of publishing 

 etiquette to review your reviewer, but I really must protest against one or two 

 of the statements made regarding my book on the above subject. 



In the first place, I read that " There are minor inaccuracies, such, for 

 instance, as where the passing of luminous carbon particles from one carbon 



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