Nov., 1894. SOME NEW BOOKS. 377 



would have been vanquished or might have remained dormant, and 

 preventing others from acquiring the control that otherwise would 

 have fallen to their lot. 



He expounds and enlarges Roux's theory of intra-selection. If 

 an individual development were predetermined in every detail, it 

 could no more produce an organism fit for hfe than, as Rouxhas aptly 

 put it, "would a commander be victorious, who, instead of giving 

 general instructions to his chief officers as to the placing and move- 

 ment of their troops, should in advance issue detailed orders for the 

 conduct of everyone down to the lieutenants, or even to each private 

 soldier. The influences which encounter organisms during their 

 development are never exactly similar, and to adapt themselves to 

 these, the organisms must have a certain amount of freedom." The 

 necessary freedom is given by intra-selection, for that " effects the 

 special adaptation of the tissues to special conditions of development 

 in each individual." 



Taking the special case of colonial insects, in which there are 

 males, females, and neuters, he elaborates an argument to show 

 that the direct effects of poor nutrition are not sufficient to account 

 for the diff"erences between neuters and females, but that " the poor 

 nourishment acts as the stimulus for the latent primary constituents 

 for the workers in the germ-plasm, not only for those in the ovary, 

 but also for those of all characters by which the worker is distin- 

 guished from the queen." 



The origin of these materials on which intra-selection and the 

 stimulus of external agencies act, Weismann refers to variations in 

 the germ-plasm. 



The Development of the Idea of Evolution. 



From the Greeks to Darwin : An Outline of the Development of the Evolution 

 Idea. By Henry Fairfield Osborn, Sc.D. 8vo. Pp. 260, New York and 

 London: Macmillan & Co., 1894. Price 9s. nett. 



The Columbia University of New York has decided to issue a series 

 of small volumes on Biology, under the editorship of Dr. Osborn, 

 the Da Costa Professor of Biology. It is not to be a library of 

 elementary text-books in the ordinary sense of the term, but to 

 consist chiefly of works dealing with certain fundamental problems 

 which will concern students who have passed beyond preliminaries. 

 With this aim it is therefore appropriate that the first volume of the 

 series should relate to the history of the philosophy of the subject. 

 We are glad now to welcome such a work from the pen of Professor 

 Osborn, who has industriously compiled a most interesting and useful 

 treatise. It is based partly upon a course of lectures delivered at 

 Princeton in 1890, partly upon another course delivered last year in 

 New York. 



Professor Osborn's treatment of the subject, though largely 

 following in the lines of previous authors, differs from preceding 

 attempts in exhibiting more continuity. He shows more clearly 

 than has hitherto been done that the growth of the idea of evolution 

 has been continuous from the efforts of the earliest Greeks to the 

 views of the present day. He carefully follows the broad idea of 

 Evolution as a natural law, and traces back the birth and develop- 

 ment of each of its parts, while constantly keeping in mind the 

 changing environment of knowledge and prejudice. As a treatise 

 for the advanced student before entering upon special reading and 



