626 



NATURE 



[February 12, 1920 



physical chemistry, and chemistry which the author 

 reconstructs in terms of the present day. The 

 kinetic theory of gases, the conduction of elec- 

 tricity through gases, liquids, and solids, the pheno- 

 mena of electromagnetism, the van der Waals 

 equation, solutions, electrolytic dissociation, chemi- 

 cal equilibria and their displacement, le Chatelier's 

 theorem, Brownian movement, electronic and 

 molecular magnitudes, with something about 

 X-rays and radio-active substances, are the subjects 

 which the tyro, who may not be able to compre- 

 hend an algebraic relation, is asked to assimilate 

 in the remaining 150 pages. The aid of the merely 

 verbal acquaintance he has made with the few ulti- 

 mate conceptions of physics is not likely to fit him 

 for the task. For these conceptions — matter, 

 energy,' radiation, the electron, the nucleus, the 

 quantum, and so on — are the end-products of scien- 

 tific philosophy, not the starting points, and cannot 

 replace, at all events yet, the body of experimental 

 and actual scientific knowledge out of which they 

 have grown. It is true that they may be the " reali- 

 ties of modern science," but a universe recon- 

 structed out of them ah initio without other 

 guide would bear as little resemblance to reality as 

 that created by the end-products of mythological 

 and religious philosophy. 



(2) This work is of a totally different character, 

 and though it represents the same desire to syn- 

 thesise and bring within the comprehension of the 

 individual a vast range — in fact, in this case, the 

 whole — of knowledge by means of a few general- 

 ised conceptions, it is written and intended for the 

 serious student and mature thinker. The author 

 upholds the extremest doctrines of materialistic 

 philosophy. To him there is no real distinction 

 between an engine and an engine-driver. In such 

 philosophical discussions it is well to remember 

 the mathematical adage that what is got out in the 

 proof is no more and no less than what was put in 

 at the enunciation. The first two chapters, on the 

 (inanimate) universe and on matter and energy, 

 give an excellent account of scientific materialism, 

 as now universally accepted for the inanimate 

 world. The rest of the book, on life and conscious- 

 ness, on the fallacy of vitalism, and on materialism 

 and idealism, seeks to extend this doctrine of the 

 inanimate universe to the animate, with results as 

 outrageous to common sense surely as any philo- 

 sophical system ever devised. 



The main, if not the only, issue of scientific in- 

 terest, the difference between a complex organic 

 compound and a living organism, or, for that 

 matter, between the same organism alive and dead, 

 is ignored. Living protoplasm is just a complex 

 organic compound, so very complex that it 

 nourishes itself by internal secretion, reproduces 

 NO. 2624, VOL. 104] 



itself, and, gradually, throughout geological time 

 modifies itself in constitution, so that, originally 

 an amceba, it finishes as a man. To the chemist, 

 who may be supposed to know something at least 

 about chemical compounds, if not to the bio- 

 logist, the view that living protoplasm is no more 

 than a very complex compound is fantastic. 



Laplace's doctrine of rigid determinism, applied 

 to this monism of the animate and inanimate, leads 

 the author to deduce that what he is now writing 

 and the sentiments his words will convey to his 

 readers could have been known and predicted a 

 myriad years ago by a being of infinite knowledge 

 and mathematical power from a study of the dis- 

 tribution of matter and energy in the original 

 nebula. Events of great consequence to the future 

 are frequently decided bv men on the spin of a 

 coin. Leave out the inanimate world and whether 

 from his nebula the omniscient being could predict 

 the fall of the coin, though the modern mathe- 

 matical physicist would probably give reasons for 

 an answer to this question totally different from 

 Laplace's view. Leave out the question of 

 moral judgments, and how they originate, alto- 

 gether. Here is a man on the point of calling 

 "Heads or Tails?" to decide the course of the 

 future — but with the decision still untaken — with a 

 certain distribution of energy and matter in his 

 brain. We are asked to believe that this matter 

 and energy will be differently distributed in a 

 manner obvious to an omniscient being — that one 

 distribution will make him call "Tails" and 

 another "Heads." A scientific materialism that 

 calmly accepts positive answers to such unsolved 



problems as these concerning free-will and t 



in name. 



F. SODDY 



nature of life is scientific surely only in name. ^H^H 



OUR BOOKSHELF. 



Mathematical Papers for Admission into ttie 

 Royal Military Academy and the Royal Mili- 

 tary College and Papers in Elementary Engin- 

 eering for Naval Cadetships for the Years 

 1909-18. Edited by R. M. Milne. (London : 

 Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1919.) Price 75. 

 A RECENT issue of this collection of examina- 

 tion papers has been reviewed in Nature. It 

 remains only to say that the papers added in the 

 new issue maintain the standard of excellence 

 already noticed. The questions are remarkably 

 suitable for the discovery of what the candidates 

 know. 



Mesures Pratiques en Radioactivite. By Dr. W. 

 Makower and Dr. H. Geiger. Traduit de 

 I'Anglais by E. Philippi. Pp. vii-fi8i. (Paris: 

 Gauthier-Villars et Cie, 1919.) Price 8 francs. 



A GOOD French translation of this well-known and 

 admirable work. 



