494 



NATURE 



[September 20. 1900 



•division of the elements into metallics and non-metallics 

 is the bottom classification of matter, the only one with 

 confidence to be designated great." 



Again (p. 56) : 



" With this alteration (hydrogen considered as metallic) 

 are we warranted in ascribing to this dual classification of 

 substance that importance, both scientifically and philo- 

 sophically, which we assign it? The evidence is over- 

 whelmingly affirmative, for no known natural product exists 

 which does not contain both classes of these elements 

 in combination. Matter itself must thus be sexual." 



There is a very widely spread mineral substance com- 

 posed of silicon and oxygen which forms no inconsider- 

 able a proportion of the earth's rocky constituents, and of 

 which the author has no doubt heard. Silica in its various 

 forms is certainly a natural product ; and so Mr. Dewar 

 will no doubt insist upon classifying silicon with the 

 metals. There is also a gas composed of carbon and 

 oxygen which is present in the atmosphere, and which is 

 of vital importance for plant life. We should like to 

 know how Mr. Dewar brings carbon dioxide under his 

 " fundamental principle, which embodies one of the most 

 salient truths in the science of the century "(p. 57). 



The reader who is anxious to know how the " New 

 Materialism" deals with the problem of life will find it 

 •disposed of in a light and airy way that might even be 

 provocative of mirth were it not evident on every page 

 that the author intends us to take him seriously. There 

 is absolutely no mystery about it at all — there is no un- 

 known force, there is no impulse different from the 

 ordinary laws of matter. The animal is " a mere mass of 

 conjoined magnets," containing "a virtual magnetic bat- 

 tery in its stomach " (p. 222). Elsewhere we are told that 

 the plant dififers from the animal in having its magnetic 

 battery outside instead of within, and the author seems 

 •quite proud of having discovered a distinction between 

 animals and plants that has hitherto eluded the men of 

 science (p. 164). As for the appearance of life on the 

 earth, it is a mere trifle to the " New Materialism" : 



" Under suitable conditions of heat, light and moisture, 

 a chance flux of suitable atoms combines sexually into 

 vegetal molecules " (p. 159) [magnetism as before]. 



" Even, as on a frosty night, the surface of the ground 

 is whitened with crystals of rime, so in many a river and 

 ocean bed the water must often coagulate with millions of 

 vegetal and animal cells " (p. 209). 



" But as igneous activity subsided to solid quiescence, 

 and water, soil, light and heat interacted, the proto- 

 plasmic elements — oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, 

 &c. — would meet in suitable proportion, and [magnetism 

 as before] the spontaneous production of simple 

 organisms — protophyta, protozoa and the lowest kinds 

 of fungi and algcc — would ensue as a matter of course, 

 &c." (p. 246). 



The origin of man is described (p. 247) in a manner 

 that can only make the reader exclaim that the New 

 Materialism, like a certain historical character, is capable 

 de tout : — 



" Man's first progenitors thus probably appeared on 

 the earth as spontaneously produced protoplasmic cells 

 or ovules, hundreds or thousands in number, developed 

 by sexual and magnetic affinities from a flux of the 

 chemical elements in some ambrosial inlet of water." • 



No further extracts need be given, and no further 

 criticism is necessary to justify the opinions expressed 

 at the beginning of this notice. R. Meldola. 



NO. 161 2, VOL. 62] 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



Untersuchunoen Uber Philons tmd Platotts Lehre von der 



Weltschopfung. Von Jakob Horovitz. Pp. xiii-f- 124. 



(Marburg : N. G. Elwart, 1900.) 

 Dr. Horovitz' essay is the outcome of his thesis 

 approved for the degree of philosophy in the University 

 of Marburg. Its purpose is to focus the rays of light 

 which close exegesis of the Timaeus throws upon the 

 cosmogonic scheme wherein Philo effected the synthesis 

 of Plato and Moses. While recognising the Stoic and 

 Neopythagorean elements in Philo's teaching. Dr. 

 Horovitz has little difficulty in showing that in both style 

 and matter the dominant influence was Plato's. It is to 

 the analysis, then, of Plato's creation-myth that we must 

 turn if we would understand Philo with his enormous 

 influence on the development of the doctrine of the 

 Logos in Christian literature. 



The ^woi/ vorjrou of the Timaeus is no mythical dupli- 

 cate of the demiurge, but distinguished as das eiuige 

 Urbild from the latter, whose real causal activity leads 

 to an identification with the creative reason and ideal 

 good of earlier dialogues. The subordinate artificers of 

 physical creation are not the ideas as distinct from the 

 idea of good, but in part a concession to popular 

 theology, in part perhaps due to the place of evil in 

 Plato's system, and the fact that dualism, though over- 

 ruled, is not extinguished. In his valuable and textually 

 supported discussion of the problems. Dr. Horovitz 

 perhaps tends to overestimate the consistency and con- 

 tinuity of Plato's writings, and to underestimate the 

 mythus element in the Timaeus. 



Now Philo's intelligible world or order, the work of 

 the one day of creation before time was or the serial 

 " days " of the production of the world of sense began, 

 is to be assimilated to the intelligible f«<w of Plato as 

 modified in conception by a use of the Stoics' metaphor 

 of architect and supra-sensual city. It is not the Logos 

 save in the sense in which his plan is the mind of the' 

 architect. Dr. Horovitz moves familiarly among the 

 conceptions of Logos, intelligible world, ideal man and 

 the like, and by adjustment of the emphasis on the 

 various clauses of Philo's commentary produces a con- 

 struction which might carry conviction. The mutata 

 of Philo, and the reasons why they were mutanda from 

 the Platonic theory, are well brought out. The ideal 

 man is the work of God, the physical man is the work of 

 God in conjunction with subordinate agents, and these 

 powers find their natural analogue in the angels of the 

 Jewish scheme. Platonic scholars, or those of them 

 who have not despaired of the (i^ov as unintelligible, 

 will find food for reflection in the one side of Dr. 

 Horovitz' study. Theologians, students of Neo- 

 platonism, persons who take an interest in the Hegelian 

 Religionsphilosophie^ may well take their starting-point 

 from the other. H. W. B. 



Fungus Diseases of Citrus Trees in Australia, and their 

 Treatment. By D. McAlpine. Pp. 132 ; 19 plates. 

 (Melbourne: Brain, Government Printer, 1899.) 

 This is one of the many useful publications dealing 

 with plant diseases issued by the Victoria Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture. According to statistics given, the 

 cultivation of orange and lemon trees is extending 

 rapidly, and one successful lemon grower considers that 

 instead of paying 62,498/. annually for oranges and 

 lemons, the colony could not only produce sufficient for 

 home consumption, but could also supply the half of 

 Europe. Under these circumstances the appearance of 

 a work of the kind under consideration is most opportune, 

 more especially as it is stated to be written for the 

 benefit of growers. It is therefore somewhat disappoint- 

 ing to find that a considerable portion of the text is 

 devoted to technical descriptions of new species of fungi, 

 a subject of no interest whatever to cultivators, more 



