432 



NATURE 



[December 2, 1920 



based on what is orig-inal and still present, trans- 

 formed in shape and measurement only. But 

 more than this is implied in Minskowski's famous 

 discourse at Cologne in 1908, which Einstein 

 seems to adopt. The former depHjsed the in- 

 tuitional space and time of our supposed direct 

 experience to the status of mere shadows. The 

 reality was to be sought in "the world-line," in 

 a continuum the factors in which were not space 

 and time, but deeper lying and inseparable phases 

 of reality, to which space and time present only 

 imperfect analogies. Some of the language of 

 modern mathematical writers is obscured by the 

 employment of words suggesting that we have 

 only to correct imperfections in the description 

 of our space and time as actual facts. Mins- 

 kowski, on the other hand, seems to point to 

 the reality being something radically different 

 from the space and time of our discourse in 

 science even of the most modern type. " Die 

 dreidimensionale Geometrie wird ein Kapitel 

 der vierdimensionalen ' Physik. Sie erkennen, 

 weshalb ich am Eingange saghte, Raum und 

 Zeit solien zu Schatten herabsinken und nur eine 

 Welt an sich bestehen." There is one English 

 mathematical writer who has seized on the full 

 meaning of this interpretation and carried 

 it out to its logical conclusions in his "Concept 

 of Nature." I refer to Prof. Whitehead. 



The metaphysical foundations of this further 

 view of Einstein's doctrine are made apparent in 

 Prof. Carr's book. That is what makes it 

 important for scientific readers, as well as 

 for the general public, who will gather from 

 it what the principle of relativity means. 

 Like all books on this subject, it requires careful 

 reading and unbroken attention, but the time 

 these necessitate, even for this short book, will, I 

 think, be found to have been thoroughly well 

 spent. Haldane. 



The Human Hand. 



The Principles of Anatomy as Seen in the Hand. 

 By Prof. Frederic Wood Jones. Pp. viii 4-325 + 

 2 plates. (London : J. and A. Churchill, 1920.) 

 Price 155. 



IN this work Prof. Wood Jones has made a 

 notable contribution not only to the literature 

 of human anatomy, but also to that of philo- 

 sophical biology. The book is the result of an 

 intensive study of a single part of our anatomy 

 undertaken in the belief that if we understand 

 it thoroughly and correctly we shall understand 

 much more — shall, in fact, know the principles 

 upon which the whole of our anatomy is formed. 

 In selecting the hand for his purpose the author 

 NO. 2666, VOL. 106] 



has chosen wisely, for it is, we think, without 

 doubt the part which is most characteristic of 

 us — that which has played the chief rSle in 

 our development. Prof. Wood Jones's method 

 is to take the various tissues forming the 

 hand — viz. the skin, nails, fasciae, bones, muscles, 

 vessels, and nerves — separately, describing them in 

 considerable detail from both the morphological 

 and the practical points of view. As we can readily 

 imagine, he is not able to confine himself strictly 

 to the hand, any more than was Sir Charles Bell 

 in his century-old book on the same subject. (We 

 might say in passing that the comparison between 

 the two books, which are further alike in that 

 they are largely illustrated by the authors them- 

 selves, is extremely interesting and illuminating, 

 as showing the great advance in our knowledge 

 and the great change which has come over our 

 conception of man's place in Nature during the 

 last hundred years.) 



From internal evidence alone the book 

 appears to have been begun as a morphological 

 study, and to have been given its practical bias 

 in consequence of experience with patients suffer- 

 ing from nerve lesions acquired in the war. The 

 fact^if fact it be that this was the order of its 

 evolution — will go far, we think, to explain the 

 peculiar value and interest of the book. It is 

 seldom that anatomy is treated from both the 

 morphological and the practical points of view ; 

 here, however, we have a book in which this is not 

 merely observed, but impartially observed, with 

 a result which, we believe, completely justifies 

 . those who look upon morphology as the guiding 

 spirit of anatomical research, and upon anatomy 

 itself as the only solid basis on which scientific 

 medicine and surgery can be founded. An ad- 

 mirable example of the close connection which 

 exists between morphology, anatomy, medicine, 

 and surgery is, we think, to be found in the 

 chapter on the skin creases or flexure lines, 

 subjects which, we agree with the author, have 

 not been given the consideration they deserve by 

 either the physician or the surgeon. 



In the chapter on the osteology of the hand the 

 form of the primitive vertebrate hand is discussed 

 at some length, and the conclusion reached that 

 the primitive hand was not only pentadactylous, 

 but also characterised by a smaller number of 

 phalanges in the preaxial digit. The discrepancy 

 in the number of phalanges in this digit compared 

 with those in the other digits may, of course, be 

 due to a decrease in the preaxial or to an increase 

 in the other digits. Despite the fact that, as is 

 pointed out and emphasised, no animal living or 

 extinct has more than two phalanges in the pre- 

 axial digit, whereas the number of phalanges in 



