82 NATURAL SCIENCE: FEB., 
are still pursuing experimental investigations, and if the same con- 
clusions can be arrived at by a multiplicity of methods, biologists and 
geologists will be constrained to acquiesce. 
THE INFLUENCE ON DEVELOPMENT OF CHEMICAL CHANGES IN THE 
SURROUNDING FLUuID. 
Curt Hersst, of Zurich, in the Zeztschrift fiiy Wissenschaftliche 
Zoologie (vol. lv., p. 456), has published the results of an interesting 
series of experiments on the eggs and larve of Echinoids. He con- 
cludes that sudden changes in the chemical composition of the sea- 
water produce great changes in the larve. But these changes are 
due, not to the chemical nature of the introduced material, but to 
changed physical conditions—chiefly to changes of the osmotic 
action between the water and the larve. He hopes that such experi- 
ments tend towards an understanding of normal development, and 
indicate paths towards the remote goal of a casual interpretation of 
life-history. By changing the chemical conditions, he hoped to find 
whether the form of a larva at all depended on the composition of 
the medium in which it grew. His first result is against a 
chemical, in favour of a physical influence. The form of the larva 
varies with osmosis within and without the larva. Clearly Curt 
Herbst—like so many other zoologists—has not abandoned hope of 
resolving vital actions into their chemical and physical elements. 
VITALISM. 
At the present time, indeed, there is abundant evidence of a funda- 
mental change in the attitude of biologists. Among zoologists, one 
often hears it said that morphology is played out. By this it is 
apparently meant that the obvious problems of microscopic anatomy 
are done with; that series of sections have been made of all the more 
familiar animals and organs, and that three weeks at the seaside with 
borax-carmine and a rocker microtome, no longer result in an epoch- 
making paper, containing a hypothetical ancestor, and a brand new 
pedigree. This is, no doubt, very depressing, but there are still 
problems in abundance ta solve, and we are far from regarding the 
microtome as obsolete. On the other hand, it is undoubtedly the 
case that the pristine enthusiasm for microscopic anatomy resulted 
in a neglect of many other sides of zoology. Examine the scientific 
journals of from four to twenty years ago, and you shall find hardly 
a word of that side of biology Professor Lankester has called 
Bionomics. At the present time, in almost every journal one sees 
studies on variation, experimental work on development, investigations 
of living things as alive. 
It is, however, among physiologists that the revival of this side 
of biology is most apparent, and it is among physiologists that the 
