262 



NATURE 



[December 6, 1917 



where the subject can be further investig-ated if 

 necessary. In some large industrial works the 

 head of any department can obtain such informa- 

 tion throug-h the works library, in which a staff 

 exists to supply it. Something of the same kind 

 is wanted on a national basis ; and the most useful 

 purpose the Department of Scientific and Indus- 

 trial Research could perform would be to institute 

 such a central bureau. 



The institution of a great clearing-house for 

 scientific facts and industrial needs would be of 

 .supreme value to national development. Intimate 

 connection must be established between workers 

 in the fields of science and industry in order to 

 bridge the gap which exists between scientific in- 

 vestigation and industrial application; and a sure 

 way of accomplishing this is through an efficient 

 and easily accessible intelligence bureau. It is to 

 what has been termed the science of the use of 

 science that the Germans owe to a great extent 

 the place they have attained in the industrial 

 world, though they have often employed unscru- 

 pulous means to reach their end. Every large 

 industrial concern should have its own informa- 

 tion and records department, which should be 

 planned on the same lines as the central bureau. 

 A few months ago M. Paul Otlet, director of the 

 International Institute of Bibliography at 

 Brussels, published in the Bulletin of the French 

 Societe d' Encouragement pour I'lndustrie 

 nationale a scheme for an international bureau 

 of this kind having as its functions the 

 collection, classification, and dissemination of all 

 information available which will tend to facilitate 

 or develop industry. Without waiting for this 

 scheme to be established, a beginning should be 

 made with a national clearing-house having like 

 intentions. 



Something has been done in this direction at 

 public libraries in different parts of the country. 

 At Coventry, for example, the staff of the Central 

 Library invites inquiries for information, whether 

 made personally, or by letter, or by telephone, 

 and lists of original papers and books dealing 

 with particular technical subjects are issued in 

 printed form and circulated widely among manu- 

 facturers and others interested in them. The 

 Glasgow libraries are also issuing lists of works 

 on various technical subjects ; and the Library 

 Association, in a report referred to last week 

 (p. 257), points out that a national lending library 

 of books suitable for giving assistance in scien- 

 tific and technological research would be of the 

 greatest advantage to technologists. 



At the annual meeting of this association, held 

 at the beginning of October, Dr. Addison, the 

 Minister of Reconstruction, said that one of the 

 NO. 2510, VOL. 100] 



features of the programme which appealed to him 

 was this movement for the formation of technical 

 and commercial libraries and for the setting up of 

 research libraries to suit the particular needs and 

 industries of various districts. It is, however, not 

 sufficient to provide for local needs ; there should 

 also be a central library and bureau which would 

 m.ake the position of knowledge in any scientific 

 or technical subject available to any inquirer. Such 

 an institution could be made self-supporting after 

 a time, for manufacturers would not hesitate to 

 pay fees for information required by them to 

 develop their industries. We look to Dr. Addison 

 and the Advisory Council for Scientific and Indus- 

 trial Research to provide this centralised means 

 of assisting industrial development. 



THE ORDER OF NATURE. 

 The Order of Nature. By Prof. L. J. Henderson, 

 Pp. iv + 234. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard 

 University Press ; London : Humphrey Milford, 

 Oxford University Press, 1917.) Price 65. 6d. 

 net. 



PROF. L. J. HENDERSON, of Harvard, is 

 well known for his important experimental 

 work in bio-chemistry. He is also the author 

 of a previous book entitled "The Fitness of the 

 Environment," in which the inherent fitness for 

 life of the actual physical and chemical world is 

 pointed out in detail. In the present work he 

 has followed up and developed the same thesis. 



The first three chapters, beginning with an 

 analysis of Aristotle's distinction between "final" 

 and "efficient" causes, are devoted to an historical 

 survey of ideas on the teleological appearance, 

 not only of organic structure, but of Nature as 

 a whole, considered as a fitting environment for 

 hfe. Up to the middle of the nineteenth century 

 the fact of a teleological determination of Nature 

 as a whole was admitted by nearly all leading 

 thinkers, however variously this fact was ex- 

 plained. The same admission appears in some of 

 Darwin's writings; but since the publication of 

 the theory of natural selection the teleological con- 

 ception of Nature has almost disappeared from 

 scientific thought. It has come to be assumed 

 that the reason why the physical and chemical 

 environment appears to be specially fitted for life 

 is simply that life has, by natural selection, been 

 so moulded as to fit its environment. Against 

 this conclusion the main chapters of the book are 

 directed; and the argument is the more remark- 

 able and original since the author accepts without 

 question the theory of natural selection. His dis- 

 cussion of Spencer's conception of evolution is 

 perhaps specially luminous. 



The reasoning is based entirely on the general 

 characteristics of life from the point of view of 

 physical chemistry, and particularly from that of 

 Willard Gibbs's analysis of the conditions of 

 stability and variability of physico-chemical 

 systems, living organisms being regarded as such 



