4 o 4 SOME NEW BOOKS [may 



with advantage refuse to employ terms which they cannot clearly define. 

 Although Prof. Hickson denies the existence of anything which corresponds 

 to what he thinks to be the meaning of the word "species," only in Millepora, 

 may we not go further and ask whether the haziness of the concept does 

 not demand, in the interests of scientific thought, the general adoption of 

 some more definable terminology 1 



As an illustration, on p. 175 Mr. Stanley Gardiner, who reports on the 

 Stony Corals, is driven to express, and then immediately to suppress, a doubt 

 as to whether Cycloseris and Fungia can be generically distinct. There is only 

 one method of deciding such a point, viz. by extended comparisons ; this will 

 either reveal transition forms or else make it more and more improbable that 

 any such exist. At present the systematic divisions into " genera " and 

 " species " are, as the perplexed worker knows to his cost, too often little else 

 than the result of guess-work. An unfortunate terminology stands in the 

 way of precision. Having accepted the genealogical method in principle, is it 

 not time that we ceased to limit it to the main stems and branches of the 

 animal kingdom ? Why not attempt to carry it to its logical conclusion and 

 replace those nebular concepts " genera " and " species " by branching lines of 

 differentiation ? This, however complicated and difficult to work out, would, at 

 least, admit of accurate treatment. 



From this point of view it is gratifying to note that a new starfish is figured 

 by Prof. Jeffrey Bell, and that he contents himself with calling attention to its 

 leading features, and wisely refrains from endeavouring to give it a place in the 

 system by guess-work. It must stand alone until fresh specimens help to link 

 it on somewhere. 



Mr. Beddard reports on the Earthworms and Mr. Shipley on the Sipunculids 

 — and two new zoologists, Miss Isa Hiles and Mr. F. E. Bedford, appear on the 

 field. The former describes the Gorgonacea and the latter the Holothurians. 

 In welcoming them we cannot refrain from congratulating them on beginning 

 their original work with systematics. The purely anatomical and morphological 

 work of the laboratory course requires the starch taken out of it by actual 

 experience of the extreme variability of organic life, and by learning that even 

 the most stable of animal types is apparently quivering under the suppression, 

 by the environment, of its power to change. 



We congratulate Dr. Willey, and the band of able zoologists who are lending 

 him their assistance, on the appearance of this solid instalment of the results 

 of his travels. H. M. B. 



HISTORY OF BIOLOGY IN MINIATURE. 



The Science of Life : An Outline of the History of Biology and its Recent 

 Advances. By J. Arthur Thomson, M.A. 8vo, pp. x. + 246. (The 

 Victorian Era Series.) London : Blackie and Son, Limited, 1899. 

 Price 2s. 6d. 



No more welcome book could be placed in the hands of the student of the 

 history of science or of thought than this little volume on the "Science of Life." 

 It is a review of all the scientific labours which centre in and bear upon the 

 great phenomena and the problem of life : a history of biology in the widest sense. 

 As such it fills a space which was empty before in the history of the sciences, 

 though many suggestive essays or addresses by Huxley, Michael Foster, Burdon 

 Sanderson in England, by du Bois Reymond, Claude Bernard and others abroad, 

 have created a lively desire for a more comprehensive treatment of this fascinat- 

 ing subject. There are only two books with which we could compare the 

 volume before us : the one is Sachs' " History of Botany," the other is Delage's 

 great volume on the " Grands problemes de la Biologic" Though we read the 

 latter with interest and profit, we would recommend Mr. Thomson's small 

 volume as a better guide through the tangled maze of biological reasoning. 



