1 68 



NATURE 



[October 15, 1914 



hav0 been much more illuminating than reproduc- 

 tions oi photographs of the outside of the 

 machines. Apart from this defect, which would 

 be corrected by a good lecturer, we have nothing 

 but praise for the book. The chapters on 

 hydraulic cements are particularly good, and there 

 is also a good description of industrial alloys. 



UFE AND ITS INTERPRETATION. 

 (i) Les Inconnus de la Biologie dHerministe. By 

 A. de Gramont Lesparre. Pp. 297. (Paris : 

 Felix Alcan, 19 14.) Price 5 frs. 



(2) Einfiihrung in die Tierpsychologie auf experi- 

 menteller und ethologischer Grundlage. By 

 Gustav Kafka. Erster Band. Die Sinne der 

 Wirbellosen. Pp. xii + 594. (Leipzig: J. A. 

 Barth, 1914.) Price 18 m. 



(3) L'Espece et son Serviteur. (Sexualite, 

 Morality.) By Prof. A. Cresson. Pp. 347. 

 (Paris : Librairie Felix Alcan, 1913.) Price 

 6 frs. 



(4) Life and Human Nature. By Sir Bampfylde 

 Fuller. Pp. xii + 339. (London: John Murray, 

 1914.) Price gs. net. 



(5) Controlled Natural Selection and Value 

 Marking. By J. C. Mottram. Pp. ix+130. 

 (London : Longmans, Green and Co., 1914.) 

 Price 35. 6d. net. 



(i) \ DE GRAMONT LESPARRE makes 

 1\, a very eloquent protest against 

 determinist biology which has no use for the 

 soul. He indulges in not a little sarcasm 

 at the expense of those who regard the 

 psychical life as an epiphenomenon of cerebral 

 metabolism, and hold that physics and chemistry 

 are sufficient, or will eventually be sufficient, for 

 the description of an animal's daily life. He con- 

 siders sensation, memory, heredity, reproduction, 

 instinct, intelligence, and so on, and shows that 

 the way of determinist biology is hard. Instead 

 of clearing things up. it lands us in an intellectual 

 fog. He will not have anything to say to 

 " psychoids " and the like, but stands for the old- 

 fashioned soul, an active intellectual principle, 

 simple and autonomous, existing alongside of or 

 rather above physiological phenomena. It is well 

 that the difficulties in the way of mechanistic inter- 

 pretation should be firmly pointed out, and the 

 author's passionate eloquence need not be taken 

 amiss in these days of compromise; it is well to 

 point out the dangers of question-begging phrases 

 like **the life of crystals," and "the memory of a 

 twisted thread " ; it is also well to proclaim the 

 inestimable value of the concept of personality ; 

 but we think it far from well that one of the 

 author's standing should give in the closing pages 

 NO. 2346, VOL. 94] 



of his book an account of the present state of the 

 theory of organic evolution which we do not 

 hesitate to call a pessimistic and reactionary mis- 

 representation. 



(2) Dr. Gustav Kafka has done an admirable 

 piece of work in bringing together in a synoptic, 

 rather than encyclopaedic manner, what is known 

 in regard to the senses of invertebrates. It is the 

 first volume of an introduction to animal 

 psychology, and it raises our expectations for 

 what Is to follow. The book is clear and 

 scholarly, and it does not lose sight of the wood 

 in studying the trees. It deals with touch, equili- 

 bration, hearing, sensitiveness to temperature, 

 to chemical influences, and to light; and ends with 

 " space-sense " (as in homing) and "time-sense " 

 (as in rhythmic movements), though the author 

 admits that these two titles are scarcely justifiable 

 psychologically. The book has abundant and in- 

 teresting illustrations, but some of them are a 

 little rough. There is a useful, well-selected 

 bibliography. As to the author's general position, 

 he believes strongly in physiology and psychology 

 minding their respective businesses. The physio- 

 logist has to work at the series of spatial happen- 

 ings between the stimulus and the reaction ; the 

 psychologist has to work out a subjective descrip- 

 tion. Just as a chemist would not be warranted 

 in postulating a magician because he did not 

 follow some of the steps in a long and complicated 

 series of reactions, so the physiologist must not 

 postulate a psychoid factor in his nexus between 

 stimulus and response. But the psychologist need 

 make no apology for working out a different kind 

 of description, equally necessary, and certainly not 

 less real. He must keep close to the observed 

 facts of behaviour, but in his psychological 

 account of these he need not allow himself to be 

 too much hindered by the difference between the 

 nervous organisation of the lower animal and that 

 which he himself possesses. There may be 

 analogous psychical life though the anatomical 

 architecture is quite different. A snake can mo\'e 

 very effectively, though it has no limbs. 



(3) The aim of Prof. Cresson 's admirable book 

 is to emphasise the extent to which organisms are 

 adapted for securing the welfare of their race. In 

 their multiplication, in their reproductive pro- 

 cesses, in their parental c^re, individuals do much 

 that is not to their own advantage ; their personal 

 interests have been subordinated to those of the 

 species. They are borne on by impulses and in- 

 stincts which are as compelling as hunger and 

 thirst, but apart from sexual gratification (which 

 applies only to a relatively small number of cases) 

 the fulfilment of these impulses and instincts is 

 often of little individual advantage. Indeed, 



