March io, 192 i] 



NATURE 



35 



expedition will sail, for in that time men can be 

 trained. Just now there must be many young 

 men to whom it would be sheer joy to be destined 

 for units in a new Challenger, landing party, and 

 the prospect of such an adventure would be a 

 powerful incentive to sustained and earnest train- 

 ing. No doubt this is a matter which those who 

 are trying to organise the expedition have in mind. 

 No doubt also the evident shortcomings of the old 

 expedition are being scrutinised — one suspects on 

 reading the " Narrative " that there was a good 

 deal of what is now called "joy-riding." These 

 are details, perhaps, that are incidental to the 

 planning of the scientific work, but they seem to 

 be really important. J. J. 



To the foregoing account of what it may reason- 

 ably be expected that an oceanographic expedition 

 would accomplish, and of the preparation that will 

 be necessary, we have now regretfully to append 

 the announcement that the council of the British 

 Association has reluctantly decided that the organ- 

 isation of such an expedition on an adequate scale 

 cannot be profitably promoted at the present time. 



In accordance with the resolution passed by the 

 general committee at the Cardiff meeting, the 

 council appointed a special oceanographic com- 

 mittee to inquire into the details of the suggested 

 project and to prepare a reasoned statement as to 

 the need for such an expedition and its probable 

 scale, scope, equipment, and cost. This memo- 

 randum has now been completed, and is available 

 for use when the occasion arises; but in view of 

 the present demand for economy in all national 

 expenditure, and after consultation with trust- 

 worthy authorities, both scientific and administra- 

 tive, the council at a recent meeting adopted a 

 report by the general officers to the effect that, 

 while retaining the scheme under consideration, 

 no further action should be taken until circum- 

 stances seem more favourable for public expendi- 

 ture upon such an undertaking. 



The Oceanographic Committee will remain in 

 existence with a watching and organising brief 

 ready to revive the project whenever a favour- 

 able opportunity arises, and the council will doubt- 

 less report upon the whole matter to the meeting 

 of the general committee of the Association at 

 Edinburgh next September. 



It is hoped that the proposed expedition is post- 

 poned only for a season, and that the interval may 

 be usefully employed in perfecting plans and 

 making other essential preparations. 

 NO. 2680, VOL. 107] 



Problems of Life and Mind. 



(i) The Ways of Life: A SttuLy in Ethics. By 

 Stephen Ward. Pp. 127. (London : Oxford 

 University Press; Humphrey Milford, 1920.) 

 6s. 6d. net. 



{2) Symbiosis: A Socio-physiological Study of 

 Evolution. By H. Reinheimer. Pp. xii + 295. 

 (London: Headley Bros., 1920.) 155. net. 



(3) Free Will and Destiny. By St. George Lane- 

 Fox Pitt. With Open Letter on the Inter- 

 national Moral Education Congress and Lejague 

 of Nations. By the Rt. Hon. Sir Frederick 

 Pollock, and appendix by Frederick J. Gould. 

 Pp. xix+ioo. (London: Constable and Co., 

 Ltd., 1920.) 5s. 



(4) Beauty and the Beast: An Essay in Evolution- 

 ary Aesthetic. By Stewart A. McDowall. 

 Pp. vii + 93. (Cambridge : At the University 

 Press, 1920.) 75. 6d. net. 



THE solution of the problems of life and mind, 

 to which George Henry Lewes addressed 

 himself in mid-Victorian times, still exercises the 

 thought of to-day. It is noteworthy that, 

 although he did not make full use of the concept, 

 Lewes, following Mill, urged that the kind of 

 effect he called "emergent" (and Mill "hetero- 

 pathic") is qualitative, new, or, as it is some- 

 times termed, "constitutive," and cannot, like 

 "resultant" effects, be quantitatively deduced 

 from given antecedents by a process of algebraical 

 summation. On this, much modern interpretation 

 turns. It does not, of course, follow that there 

 are not laws of qualitative emergents, just as 

 there are quantitative laws of resultants. Nor 

 does it follow that, in life and mind, there Is no 

 hereditary transmission of emergent qualities. 

 Nay, rather it may be said that the laws and the 

 history of evolution are founded on emergence as, 

 in the long run, the keynote of progress. In 

 the system of philosophy which Prof. Alexander 

 has recently laid before us the stages of emer- 

 gence from the bosom of space-time are fully 

 discussed. 



Noteworthy, too, is Lewes 's treatment of the 

 unconscious, which, for him, was to be inter- 

 preted, aft^r mid-Victorian fashion, in terms of 

 physiology. That does not satisfy the thinkers 

 of to-day. Many claim that, in psychical terms, 

 all that is psychical must be interpreted; and if, 

 in the midst of our fully conscious life, with its 

 memory and anticipation, there surges up much 

 that is new, and that, from its very newness, 

 carries neither the again-ness of the one nor the 

 not-yet-ness of the other, this must be interpreted 

 as the outcome of psychical integration which 



