130 'NATURAL SCIENCE. August. 



The Comfortable Word. 



Thoughts on Evolution. By P. G. F. 8vo. Pp. 88. London : Swan 



Sonnenschein & Co., Ltd., 1896. Price is. 

 This little pamphlet is a defence of the ethical aspect of evolution, in 

 opposition to the thesis of Huxley's " Evolution and Ethics." The 

 criticism of the Romanes lecture that we published exactly two years 

 ago contains the gist of P. G. F.'s arguments, though it does not 

 contain all the assumptions and statements that P. G. F. finds 

 necessary. We, for instance, should not say that " since the advent 

 of man a great change seems to have come over the animal creation. 

 That prolific activity of the cosmic spirit which distinguished the first 

 period, resulting in the production of such an amazing variety of 

 animal forms, appears to have relented after that event." Or again, 

 " some force or vital principle appears to have left the animal and 

 passed into the human nature, which conferred on the latter the 

 capacity of developing into the higher form of life, and the loss of 

 which deprived the animal nature of the same capability." The 

 author does not attempt to prove these propositions, and we can find 

 no warrant for them. Such passages, which are not few, suggest 

 that the writer's acquaintance with the facts of nature is derived from 

 controversial literature similar to his own essay. 



The Sequence of Evolution. 

 The Whence and the Whither of Man : a brief History of his Origin and 

 Development through Conformity to Environment. By John M. Tyler. Svo. 

 Pp.312. New York ; Charles Scribner's Sons, 1896. Price |i. 75. 



This little volume, by the Professor of Biology in Amherst 

 College, contains the course of Morse Lectures delivered at Union 

 Theological Seminary in the spring of 1895. The ten chapters, 

 representing as many lectures, are of an elementary and popular 

 character ; and they will prove both entertaining and instructive to 

 the general reader who desires to know the present position of the 

 doctrine of evolution. The professor's main idea is, that the broad 

 outlines in the development of the world of life can be determined by 

 tracing the "sequence of dominant functions" or "of physiological 

 dynasties" presented by organisms as they are followed through 

 time. This sequence "can be traced with far more ease and safety, 

 not to say certainty, than one of anatomical details. The latter 

 characterise small groups, genera, families, or classes ; while the 

 dominant function characterises all animals of a given grade, even 

 those which through degeneration have reverted to this grade. Even 

 if I cannot trace the exact path which leads to the mountain-top, I 

 may almost with certainty affirm that it leads from meadow and 

 pasture through forest to bare rock, and thence over snow and ice to 

 the summit ; for each of these forms a zone encircling the mountain. 

 Very similarly I find that, whatever genealogical tree I adopt, one 

 sequence in the dominance of functions characterises them all ; 

 digestion is dominant before locomotion, and locomotion before thought. 

 . . . The history of the development of anatomical details, however 

 important and desirable, is not the only history which can be written, 

 nor is it essential. It would be interesting to know the size of brain, 

 girth of chest, average stature, and the features of the ancient Greeks 

 and Romans. But this is not the most important part of their history, 

 nor is it essential. The great question is, what did they contribute 

 to human progress. " The idea is carefully worked out, and the 

 biological facts in illustration of the thesis are well selected. 



