433 



NATURE 



[March 7, 1901 



evidence relied on by those who see in the phenomenon 

 of chromosome-reduction a confirmation of Weism'ann's 

 theory falls to the ground. And with it, also, the hypothesis 

 of plurivalency and continued persistence of the chromo- 

 somes suffers a serious limitation, for it is obvious that a 

 time must soon arrive, in the sequence of generations, at 

 which the evident chromosomes themselves can no longer 

 consist of the telescoped chromosome units of all the 

 previous life-cycles. In short, each chromosome that 

 appears after the reduction in number cannot be repre- 

 sented in terms of the somatic units as a-\-b^ but it must 

 possess a new structure c. 



Prof. Wilson very fairly reviews the evidence for and 

 against a qualitative reduction (of the quantitative or 

 numerical reduction there is, of course, no question), 

 leaning, as has been said, somewhat in its favour, and 

 it must be admitted that there is some indirect evidence 

 in support of it. Perhaps it hardly falls within the scope 

 of the author's work, but a consideration of the reversion 

 of hybrids to the original stocks, such as indicated by 

 Mendel's law, which has recently formed the subject 

 of important communications by De Vries and by 

 Correns, might have been discussed in this connection. 



Exigencies of space forbid us to do more than to indi- 

 cate the excellence of the treatment of the structure and 

 development of the spermatozoon, of the phenomena of 

 fertilisation, and of parthfenogenesis. Our views as to the 

 essential nature of fertilisation are undergoing a change 

 in certain respects as the result of cytological investiga- 

 tions in this field of inquiry. We have clearly to recog- 

 nise the existence of two distinct factors in the process. 

 The one is concerned with the stimulation of the g.%%, 

 which is thereby impelled to segment and to develop into 

 a new organism, the other is involved in the fusion of the 

 two sexual nuclei. 



Boveri's experiments long ago showed that a fusion of 

 the male and female nuclei was not essential to the seg- 

 mentation and organised development of an &%%. He 

 succeeded in fertilising non-nucleated fragments of 

 echinoderm eggs with the sperms of another species, 

 with the result that larvcC exhibiting the paternal characters 

 only were formed. These experiments were for some 

 time regarded as not being free from objection, but they 

 have been repeated with similar results. Again, as Loeb 

 has recently shown, it is possible, by treating the un- 

 fertilised eggs of Arbacia with a solution of magnesium 

 chloride, to cause them when replaced in sea-water to 

 give rise to normal larvae. And once more, Nathansohn 

 has proved that, in the case of Marsilea, a sufficiently 

 high temperature suffices to excite parthenogenetic de- 

 velopment in the oospheres of these plants. Even in 

 many normally fertilised eggs it has been repeatedly 

 shown that the stimulus which starts the karyokinetic 

 processes in the egg comes from the cytoplasmic (centro- 

 some) portions of the sperm rather than from its nucleus. 



As regards the significance of the nuclear fusion, 

 although we are as yet unable to speak with certainty as 

 to its proximate or efficient cause, there can be little 

 doubt but that its teleological significance is to be sought 

 in the fact that these bodies contain in themselves the 

 physical basis of heredity, and thus by their coalescence 

 the hereditary qualities of both parents are mingled in the 

 offspring. J. B. Farmer. 



NO. 1636, VOL. 63] 



METHOD IN PHILOSOPHY. 

 Die Transzendentale und die Psychologische Methode^ 

 Dr. Max F. Scheler. Pp. i8i. (Leipzig : Diirr'scheni 

 Buchhandlung, 1900.) Mk. 4. 



IN. opposition to the positivism which avers that if we 

 take care of facts method may be left to take care of 

 itself. Dr. Scheler claims that the history of thought, its 

 continuity notwithstanding, shows abundantly that each 

 fresh conquest in knowledge is preceded by a definite, 

 if often half-conscious, breach with outworn method. 

 Kant's historic mission has been fulfilled^ and, after a 

 century's probation, the time has arrived to pass beyond 

 him. Not, however, by the adoption in philosophy of 

 that psychological method which, discredited in Condillac 

 and Hume, has been encouraged by recent advances in 

 technical psychology to essay rehabilitation in more 

 plausible forms. Dr. Scheler is with contemporary 

 psychology in its reaction in favour of real as against 

 formal principles, development as against finality, the 

 historical as against the mathematical temper. He is 

 with the Kantian in his recognition of the quaestio juris 

 and in his advocacy of an inverse or " reductive " method. 

 In the result he accepts a formula from Eucken — that of 

 a regress from "the well-founded phenomenon" of a 

 culture embodied in a coherent aggregate of institutions 

 to the real forces of which it is the living and still growing 

 product. Arbeitswelt and Geistige Lebensform are the 

 catchwords of this "noological" method. 



Dr. Scheler's discussion of "transcendental" method, 

 i.e.^ the inference from an accepted group of facts to the 

 principle which can and can alone explain them — what 

 evidence of the " alone " could be adduced it is hard to 

 see — directs its main attack, not against its inverse 

 character, but against (i) its static nature due to accept- 

 ance of an immutable starting-point, (2) its formalism 

 in its conclusion to grounds of a merely logical kind, (3) 

 its intellectualism with its consequent neglect of " three- 

 fourths of life." Its alleged "synthetic propositions 

 a priori" i.e., propositions at once instructive and neces- 

 sary, are really experiential. The starting-point is really 

 dependent on psychology. Change the period and get a 

 different psychological " climate," and you will find that 

 the transcendental presuppositions will be different. But 

 if so, the psychological ground-propositions will be com- 

 plete in themselves, and formal conditions established by 

 transcendental deduction are superfluous. The only 

 regress which is not simply a doubling of the data must 

 be towards real, that is, actual and active principles. 

 And the data are neither unchanging nor purely rational. 



This general appreciation Dr. Scheler reinforces by a 

 detailed treatment of space, time, causation, and per- 

 sonality. As regards space, the temptation to strengthen 

 the charge of formalism by putting Kant out of touch 

 with a perceptual world has proved too strong for Dr. 

 Scheler. Kant^s " empty " space probably means only that 

 all particular contents of space can severally be thought 

 away without altering our space-apprehension. Kant's 

 space is voidable rather than void. Geometer's spate, 

 while it is in one sense an abstraction, is not only not a 

 generic concept, but not a concept at all, if the argument 

 as to whole and parts in Kant's metaphysical exposition 

 is to stand. The psychogenetic problem of the percep- 

 tion of a third dimension is irrelevant to Kant's nativism. 



