of mere casuals are mentioned either as having been personally observed or 
recorded in the past. The flora proper is accompanied by an all too short 
physico-botanical account of Wirral (unfortunately the only hundred so treated), 
a short account of the Bucklow hundred, and a bibliography of Cheshire 
botany. J. A. TERRAS. 
TELEOLOGY. 
Elemente der empirischen Teleologie. By PAUL NIKOLAUS CossMANN. 8vo, 
132 pp. Stuttgart: A. Zimmer’s Verlag (Ernst Mohrmann), 1899. 
Price 4 marks. 
There are some biologists who think, or who speak as if they thought, that 
teleology is a vestigial organ in culture—a way of looking at things which has 
had its day, and must gradually cease to be. Purposive structure and function 
—adaptation in short—they admit, but Darwinism has supplied the ‘“ mechani- 
cal explanation,” and teleology is an irrelevancy. To others it seems that in 
biology we have not yet got very far in discovering the causal chains, the last 
link of which is an adaptation, and that even if we had got much further, we 
should have reached only a formulation in simpler terms. To these, teleology 
appears no irrelevancy, but a necessity of thought. Far from destroying teleo- 
logy, Darwinism has rather deepened it. 
The author of this book is an ardent teleologist, who seeks to show how 
difficult it is for us even in our scientific phraseology to get away from teleo- 
logical conceptions, and how partial the outlook is which rests satisfied with 
chains of cause and effect. In working out these, the teleological idea is irrele- 
vant and even inhibitive; for their development as parts of an intellectual 
system it is, however, necessary, since so-called scientific explanations are not 
explanations at all. The book is full of quotations and illustrations intended 
to show the difficulty of eliminating teleological conceptions from biology, and 
the utility of appreciating them. It might be described as a plea for a franker 
recognition of the purposive, and should be interesting to students of ‘‘ Methoden 
lehre” and the philosophy of biology. X. 
A FALSE ANALOGY ? 
La spécificité cellulaire, ses conséquences en biologie générale. By L. Barn. 
Professeur a la Faculté de médecine de Lyon. (Scientia. No. L) 100 
pp. Paris: Georges Carré et C. Naud, 1899. Price 2 francs. 
In the young organism, or young organ, there is often apparent uniformity 
among the component cells. As observed by our methods, they show no hint 
of the variety of cellular type which will gradually arise among their descend- 
ants. Many biologists have described this early state as one of “cellular 
indifference,” and have ascribed the subsequent differentiation to the variety of 
cellular environment which ensues as the elements become more numerous. 
But this way of looking at the facts does not commend itself to Professor L. 
Bard, who has since 1885 been insisting on what he calls “la spécificité cellu- 
laire.” According to this view the various types of cell in the body are like 
different species with a common ancestor; one cannot be transformed into 
another ; their differentiation is not a function of their environment, but an 
expression of their inherited properties. Virchow’s famous formula has, he 
says, to be modified into “Omnis cellula e cellula ejusdem naturae.” 
He admits that his theory has not been welcomed by histologists, but he 
takes heart in detecting a gradual loss of confidence in the theory of cellular 
indifference. A final triumph, he tells us repeatedly, awaits his doctrine, and 
he has no patience with eclectics who would recognise that the early indiffer- 
