NATURE 



[Nov. I, 1888 



accept the verdict of Dean Church, that " the course 

 which he marked out so laboriously and so ingeniously 

 for induction to follow was one which was found to be 

 impracticable, and as barren of results as those deductive 

 philosophies on which he lavished his scorn." This 

 remark may be approximately true of the method of 

 rejections or exclusions, which proceeds on the false 

 assumption that the whole complex system of the material 

 universe may be resolved into a small and definite number 

 of " simple natures," just as the numerous words which 

 constitute a language may all be resolved into the few 

 and assignable letters of an alphabet ; but it is most 

 emphatically not true of the methods which are subsidiary 

 to the method of exclusions, such as the " Tables " and 

 " Prerogatives of Instances." The subsidiary methods 

 have, happily, a value of their own quite independently 

 of the main object which they were supposed to subserve. 

 Nor, as it seems to us, can it be doubted that these 

 methods have been actually fertile in the progress of 

 scientific discovery. Not, perhaps, ■ that the greatest 

 discoverers have ofcen consciously, deliberately, and 

 designedly set to work to employ them ; but methods 

 and principles of this kind, when once enunciated and 

 realized, are, as it were, " in the air," and their influence 

 is often no less potent because it is one of which men are 

 only dimly conscious. 



The process of fault-finding, especially as applied to a 

 book which we have read with interest and pleasure, is 

 not one which we would gladly prolong ; but, to prevent a 

 very grave misconception of Bacon's philosophical posi- 

 tion, we feel it incumbent on us to point out a serious 

 error into which Dean Church has been led by too im- 

 plicit confidence in the authority of Mr. Ellis. " Bacon's 

 conception of philosophy," we are told, " was so narrow 

 as to exclude one of its greatest domains ; for, says Mr. 

 Ellis, ' it cannot be denied that to Bacon all sound philo- 

 sophy seemed to be included in what we now call the 

 natural sciences.'" By "sound philosophy" is meant, it 

 may be presumed, philosophy based on experience, and ; 

 arrived at by the inductive method. In "Nov. Org.," 

 Book I., Aph. 127, we have the question as to the range 1 

 of the sciences to which the new method is applicable 

 definitely propounded and definitely answered. " Etiam 

 dubitabit quispiam potius quam objiciet, utrum nos de 

 Naturali tantum Philosophia, an etiam de scientiis I 

 reliquis, Logicis, Ethicis, Politicis, secundum viam 

 nostram perficiendis loquamur. At nos certe de universis : 

 haec quae dicta sunt intelligimus : atque quemadmodum j 

 vulgaris logica, quas regit res per syllogismum, non tantum 

 ad naturales, sed ad omnes scientias pertinet ; ita et 

 nostra, quaa procedit per inductionem, omnia complecti- 

 tur." There are many other passages in the " Novum 

 Organum," the " De Augmentis," and elsewhere, to the ' 

 same effect. Indeed, it appears to us unquestionable i 

 that Bacon, while he regarded his method as primarily, 

 and, perhaps, most easily, applicable to the natural 

 sciences, contemplated its ultimate extension to all 

 branches of knowledge alike. The few passages which [ 

 seem to point in the opposite direction are, doubtless, ! 

 ironical, and refer, not to science, or knowledge in the 

 true sense, at all, but to rhetoric and disputation. 



The last chapter of the book is on Bacon as a writer. 

 Here the author is thoroughly at home, and the striking 



and suggestive remarks which he makes on this topic 

 only cause us to regret that there are not more of them. 

 Take, for instance, the following just and forcible sen- 

 tences on Bacon's English composition : — " His manner 

 of writing depends, not on a style, or a studied or 

 acquired habit, but on the nature of the task which he 

 has in hand. Everywhere his matter is close to his 

 words, and governs, dominates, informs his words. No 

 one in England before had so much as he had the power 

 to say what he wanted to say, and exactly as he wanted 

 to say it. No one was so little at the mercy of conven- 

 tional language or customary rhetoric, except when he 

 persuaded himself that he had to submit to those 

 necessities of flattery, which cost him at last so dear." 



T. Fowler. 



KARVOKINESIS. 



Ueber Kern- und Zelliheilung im PJlanzenreicJie, nebst 

 einem Anhang iiber Befruchtung. Von E. Strasburger, 

 o. o. Professor der Botanik an der Universitat Bonn. 

 Mit drei lithographischen Tafeln. (Jena : Gustav 

 Fischer, 1888). 



PROF. STRASBURGER intends this volume to 

 constitute only the first of a new series of con- 

 tributions to our knowledge of vegetable histology. In 

 these 258 pages the phenomena attending indirect or 

 mitotic nuclear division, and the earher stages in the 

 formation of the cell-membrane, are entered on in detail. 

 During the four years which have elapsed since the 

 appearance of the author's last contribution to this subject 

 (" Die Controversen," &c.) numerous memoirs have been 

 published relating to the nucleus and its division. Prof, 

 Strasburger not only contributes a vast number of new 

 facts, but also reviews the whole nuclear question in a] 

 masterly fashion, so that the work may be regarded as 

 critical text-book of our present knowledge of the subject.' 

 It will be seen from what follows, that, although many of 

 his former conceptions have been confirmed, there still 

 remain points which are doubtful, and some positions 

 formerly held by him which are now abandoned. 



The book commences with a long account of a renewed 

 investigation of the nuclear processes in Spirogyra, the 

 research in question being carried out on a new species^ 

 S. polytcejiiata, which presented many facilities for the 

 purpose. This account is full of interest, but difficult to 

 do justice to here, without figures. During the early stages 

 of division, whilst the nuclear fibrils are making their way 

 to the equatorial plane and the nucleolus undergoing 

 solution, but before the breaking down of the nuclear 

 wall, a mass of cytoplasm is formed on the two faces of 

 the nucleus which are directed towards the end-walls of 

 the cell, and in these a striation becomes apparent, repre- 

 senting the commencement of the spindle. Soon the 

 nuclear wall becomes indistinct where the striation abuts 

 upon it, and spindle-filaments appear within the nucleus ; 

 these form an undoubted continuation of those which 

 appeared outside. There would appear to be no ground 

 for supposing these later-appearing filaments of the spindle 

 to have an origin differing from those which appeared 

 first of all, but rather they are their direct continuation, 

 and due to the intrusion of cytoplasm into the nucleus. 



