572 



NA TURE 



L^A.iubER 20, 1923 



indication of the eagerness with which the " practical " 

 man is turning to the man of science for information. 

 To the poultry-breeder this book is indispensable, for 

 it gives a concise picture of all that has been done by 

 the geneticist working with poultry up to the end of 

 1922, and no poultry-breeder can afford to disregard 

 the facts with which the book is crammed. To the 

 biologist the book will have a different interest : it 

 will serve as a landmark in the history of the genetics 

 of the fowl, for in tlie next decade great advances are 

 due. In America, in Australia, in Russia, and in 

 Britain, much concentrated experimental breeding 

 work is in progress. The phenomena of linkage are 

 now being investigated, but owing to the greater 

 complexity of the chromosome constitution — there 

 are seven large pairs and at least nine small pairs of 

 chromosomes, it appears — it cannot be expected that 

 progress will be as rapid and spectacular in the fowl 

 as it has been in the case of Drosophila. To those of 

 us who are working with the fowl this book is a great 

 stimulus : Prof. Punnett's 1933 edition shall bear 

 witness to what the geneticist can do, given opportunity. 



F. A. E. C. 



Essence and Existence. 



Scepticism and Animal Faith : Introduction to a 

 System of Philosophy. By George Santayana. Pp. 

 xii+314. (London, Bombay and Sydney: Con- 

 stable and Co., Ltd., 1923.) 125. net. 



The Life of Reason : Or the Phases of Human 

 Progress. By George Santayana. Second edition. 

 In 5 vols. Vol. I : Introduction and Reason in 

 Commonsense. Pp. xix + 291. Vol. 2: Reason in 

 Society. Pp. viii + 205. Vol. 3 : Reason in Religion. 

 Pp. ix + 279. Vol. 4 : Reason in Art. Pp. ix + 230. 

 Vol. 5 : Reason in Science. Pp. ix + 320. (London, 

 Bombay and Sydney : Constable and Co., Ltd., 

 1923.) 85. net each vol. 



MR. SANTAYANA has a wonderful gift of expres- 

 sion and writes with a distinction and charm 

 which are an unending source of delight. Yet he 

 leaves his readers with a strange unsatisfied feeling 

 not free from .a touch of resentment. He is a true 

 poet, who can write prose with all the rhythm of verse. 

 Born in Madrid of Spanish parents, he tells us that 

 he has chosen our language for his literary expression, 

 though it is not his native tongue, because he con- 

 siders that so far as containing truth is concerned 

 one language is as good as another, and he prefers 

 ours. Also, what is truly admirable in a philosopher, 

 he finds it adequate. When we read, however, his 

 sustained but pleasant and well-balanced soliloquising, 



NO. 2816, VOL. 112] 



we cannot but wonder why he should suppose tliai 

 we are interested in his want of interest in wliat 

 interests us. Yet this is the whole burden of his 

 philosophy. 



Mr. Santayana told us in a recent book that when th< 

 War came it found him at Oxford, and he remained 

 there, apparently because he could look on without 

 taking part, indifferent to the result, and comparative!) 

 undisturbed. He was content to leave the issue \u 

 the statesmen and soldiers ; the folly and the wickedness 

 of it might sadden him, but his care was that it should 

 not attach him or invade his philosophic calm. In 

 the same spirit he now contemplates the scientifu 

 revolution in mathematics and physics which has 

 produced in our time an intellectual upheaval. It 

 interests him, of course ; he thinks it may mean that 

 he is living to see the emergence of a new concept of 

 nature, a new cosmology, comparable with those of 

 Heracleitus, Pythagoras, or Democritus, but as a 

 philosopher he has no part in the matter, and the 

 issue, whatever it be, will not disturb him. He 

 glories in the fact that he does not understand the 

 new principle and is easily and comfortably warned 

 off the attempt to understand it. He knows he has 

 not the technical equipment of the mathematician, 

 and so he must and will accept the new discovery 

 whenever the mathematicians and physicists tell him 

 they are agreed. 



It is possible there are many students of science 

 who will heartily approve this maxim of the aloofness 

 of philosophy from all actual scientific research. It 

 seems to express exactly what the great scientific 

 leaders of the nineteenth centur>' were always insisting 

 on, the positivity of physics, the speculative nullity 

 of metaphysics. Gladly will they respect the morahs- 

 ing, soliloquising, mysticising philosopher, especially if, 

 like the author we are considering, he be endowed 

 with poetic genius, so that he will not interfere with 

 the stem experimental work in which science is engaged. 

 But if that ideal would suffice for the last century 

 it fails utterly to satisfy the present. The coming 

 of the theories of relativity has changed the whole 

 aspect of the scientific world and the whole attitude 

 of men of science to philosophy and of philosophers 

 to men of science. Science and philosophy are now 

 engaged in a conjoint undertaking, the adaptation 

 of the human mind to a new cosmogony forced upon 

 it by the necessity of fitting experimental facts into 

 natural conceptual frames. 



What then, in the present state of our science, has 

 Mr. Santayana to tell us which is positive ? What is 

 the substantive part of his contribution ? He has 

 something \tTy definite to say, and whether he knows 

 it or not, and whether he cares that it should be so 



