378 



The Journal of Heredity 



The present bud sport of Pandanus 

 utilis has therefore made two funda- 

 mental progressive changes at one 

 mutation. It has lost one spiral of 

 leaves and also has changed the posi- 

 tions of the two remaining ranks in 

 such a manner that the spiral or twist 

 is entirely obliterated. The cause for 

 those peculiarities must be in some 

 changes in the nature of the hereditary 

 apparatus, presumably the chromo- 

 somes, but whatever the cause, it is of 

 the same nature as that which must 



have occurred a great number of times 

 either in the vegetative tissues or in the 

 reproductive cells of numerous inde- 

 pendent series of Monocotyls. In some 

 groups one of these characters has been 

 acquired independently. In those cases 

 where a species has advanced to the 

 two-ranked condition without a spiral 

 twist there may have been but one 

 mutation, as the bud-sport in hand, or 

 there may have been two or more suc- 

 cessive mutations to bring about the 

 final form. 



Beyond 



Modern Psychical Phenomena, by 

 Hereward Carrington, Ph.D. Pp. 

 331, illustrated, price $2.50. New 

 York : Dodd, Mead & Co., 1919. 



Psychical research is becoming am- 

 bitious. Not content with lifting the 

 veil that conceals the future, it will now 

 raise the veil from the past. Thus Dr. 

 Cai-rington not only elucidates the na- 

 ture of sex and bisexual reproduction 

 in the spirit world of after-death, but 

 illuminates the origin of natural selec- 

 tion. 



Life appeared on this planet when 

 the conditions "were favorable to the 

 formation and continuance of life." So 

 far, so good. "So long as these condi- 

 tions lasted, life prospered; everything 

 favored its growth. This first living 

 matter grew and finally split up, or in 

 some manner gave birth to other living 

 matter, and the procession of life had 

 begun." Simple, like all other great 

 discoveries. 



"But mark this — death had not yet 

 appeared upon the earth; sickness and 

 decay had not yet made their presence 

 felt — for if they had, at the very origin 

 of creation, life would have become ex- 

 tinct as soon as it came into being." 

 The argument is at least plausible. 



"So long as life went on in an unin- 

 terrupted and peaceful manner, just so 

 long was 'everything in the garden 

 lovely.' Life increased and multiplied, 

 and nothing had come to destroy it. But 

 one fine day the living substance reacted 



the Veil 



wrongly — contrary to the laws govern- 

 ing its environment, and then the ex- 

 ternal forces of nature burst forth, 

 swept down and destroyed a portion of 

 this living substance, and injured an- 

 other portion, causing it to become 'dis- 

 eased' and decay. The uninjured por- 

 tion continued to live and propagate ; 

 the injured portions died." ^'Disobed- 

 ience to cosmic law thus constituted the 

 first evil — protoplasmic disobedience — 

 the penalties for which were disease and 

 death." 



Aside from such evolutionary re- 

 velations. Dr. Harrington's book con- 

 tains a readable account of the status 

 of psychical research as viewed by one 

 whom the professional researchers re- 

 gard as an authority. He considers 

 "hypnotism, dreams, telepathy, crystal 

 gazing, automatic writing, the vast 

 powers of the subconscious mind, dis- 

 sociation of personality, multiple per- 

 sonality, and many other phenomena 

 today recognized and accepted by 'orth- 

 odox' science," and believes that "many 

 other phenomena (such as apparitions, 

 'ghosts,' haunted houses, telekinesis, 

 materialization, thought photography — 

 even spirit communication itself) are 

 today gradually but surely winning ac- 

 ceptance." His ideas of the valuation 

 of evidence may be measured by his dis- 

 covery of "a mathematical proof of the 

 existence of a spirit world" in the fact 

 that mathematicians find "imaginary 

 quantities" convenient in their notation. 



