270 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



lines of research are many, and we knowledge and theory which shall 

 may reasonably hope that before not only illuminate the past but be 

 long the combined labors of anthro- [ of the very highest value for the 

 pologist, ethnologist, and sociologist comprehension of the problems of 

 will give us a coherent body of our own day. 



.Scientific %ittxvdnxt* 



SPECIAL BOOKS. 

 / 



In a study of what constitutes the foundations of zoology we know of 

 no one better equipped to discuss the various problems than Professor 

 Brooks.* As an original investigator in many groups of invertebrate zool- 

 ogy, as a student of animal life in temperate and tropical seas, as a special 

 teacher of embryology and zoology for a quarter of a century, and, above 

 all, as a profound student of the philosophical literature of the subject, 

 his equipment is thorough and complete. A fair review of this work would 

 be difficult without voluminous quotations from its pages. 



The reader will find here the soundest, healthiest acceptance of the Dar- 

 winian theory of natural selection. He penetrates the mists and fogs of 

 philosophical vagaries and follows the dictum of Tyndall, who, in present- 

 ing the essentials of a discussion, says, " Not with the vagueness belonging 

 to the emotions, but with the definiteness belonging to the understanding " 

 we are to study these matters. It is fact, fact, fact. The honest " I do 

 not know" inspires the reader with a confidence that obscure points are 

 not to be juggled with. He insists that the principles of science are phys- 

 ical, that a mechanical interpretation of Nature is reasonable and just. 

 Referring to Huxley, he remarks that faith and hope are good things, no 

 doubt, and (quoting from Huxley) " expectation is permissible when belief 

 is not," but experience teaches that expectation or faith of a master is very 

 apt to become belief in the mind of the student," and (again from Huxley) 

 " Science warns us that the assertion which outstrips evidence is not only 

 a blunder but a crime." 



In the chapter of Nature and Nurture he brings many potent facts and 

 arguments against the idea of the transmission of acquired traits. With- 

 out copious extracts it is impossible to do justice to this masterly presen- 

 tation of the subject. The chapter abounds in aphorisms, as indeed do 

 other portions of the work ; and these alone, if serially collated with their 

 contexts, would make a valuable little handbook for the student of biology. 

 His chapter on Lamarck is equally strong, and the fallacies of Lamarck- 

 ianisms have never been so clearly shown. " The contrast between what we 

 may call the solicitude of Nature to secure the production of new beings, 

 and the ruthlessness with which tliey are sacrificed after they have come 

 into existence, is a stumbling-block to the Lamarckian, and the crowning 

 glory of natural selection in that it solves this great enigma of Nature by 

 showing that it is itself an adaptation and a means to an end, for the sac- 

 rifice of individuals is the means for perfecting the adjustments of living 

 things to the world around them and for thus increasing the sum of life." 



* The FonndationB of Zoology. A Course of Lectures delivered at Columbia University on the 

 Principl n of Rr iouce as illnstnited by ZcOlogy. By William Keith Brooks. Ph. D., LL. D., Professor 

 of Zoology at Johns Hopkins University. Pp. 339. The Macmillan Company. 



