November 21, 1895] 



NATURE 



53 



the idea of a social consciousness working in the minds 

 of members of a society. Though in his idea of an 

 absolute mind he approaches most nearly to Spinoza, 

 the argument is totally different, and the difficulties it 

 raises are overwhelming. Is such a mind finite or infinite ? 

 If finite, where are the bounds of matter ? If infinite, 

 the analogy from the minds we know, which accompany 

 a limited portion of matter, breaks down. Of a social 

 mind we know nothing in fact ; but so far as we conceive 

 it clearly, we conceive it as animating the minds of 

 individual persons. Yet if it is to supply a basis of in- 

 ference to an absolute mind which animates the whole 

 universe of physical and material things, we must sup- 

 pose it to animate not merely ourselves, but our houses 

 and all the material of our social life. 



Romanes' thought reaches its highest flight where he 

 identifies the principle of causality with volition. By 

 this means he seeks to maintain the freedom of the will, 

 and to find an explanation of morality and responsibility. 

 It is an argument of much subtlety and ingenuity, in which 

 elements are blended that remind us partly of Kant, 

 partly of Green, but never of Spinoza. It culminates in 

 an interesting theistic speculation, in which the absolute 

 will is represented as assenting to the free volitions of all 

 relative wills. The basis of the argument is a protest 

 against regarding causality as in any sense prior to the 

 mind, so that the mind should be subject to deter- 

 mination. The consciousness of causality is derived 

 from volition, and therefore, so he seems to argue, volition 

 is the primary cause. Hence the will as will is free to 

 will anything whatever, even the impossible — it is limited 

 only in its executive capacity through the restraints im- 

 posed on the body. On the other hand, though every 

 will is free and might have willed otherwise, the moral 

 or rational will is that which wills what is expedient under 

 the circumstances in which actions have to be performed 

 in the external world. This is no restriction of free- 

 dom, any more than a man is not free to marry, because 

 to do so he must go through the marriage ceremony (a 

 strange re-emergence this of the notion that moralaction is 

 simply self-consistent action). The questions raised by the 

 argument are seductive. Every reason which Romanes 

 alleges for the freedom of mind, as unaffected by causality, 

 is equally an argument on the monistic theory against 

 the causal necessity to which matter, he believes, is still 

 subject. Instead of holding mind free and matter bond, 

 he should have held them both equally bond or equally 

 free, or should have declared causality to be an illusion. 

 As it is, he has in reality reintroduced the notion of a 

 mind which is not even affected by its own character. 

 And this on the ground of what seems to be a confusion 

 between two interpretations of will, as the process of 

 which we are aware in volition, or as some supposed 

 activity behind volition itself. If causation and volition 

 are identical, as he says, and we become aware of causa- 

 tion by volition, the will must be the process known. 

 But this may surely be subject to causality, like any other 

 object of thought. If the will is understood in the other 

 sense, how are ue to understand the monistic identity 

 of mental state and physiological process ? Elsewhere 

 Romanes urges that the mind is free, since whatever 

 acts upon it is recognised by it as a motive. It would 

 seem then natural to hold that while minds as well as 



NO. i3(:o, VOL. 53] 



bodies must be regarded as subject to determination, i 

 is only minds which are conscious of their motives, an 

 which therefore may have the consciousness of freedom. 



S. A. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 

 Fann Foods ; or, the Rational Feeding oj Farm 



Animals. By Emil v. Wolff. Trahslatect by Herbert 



H. Cousins, M.A. Pp. xvi. + 365. (London : Gurney 



and Jackson, 1895.) 

 This is a translation from the sixth edition of the well- 

 known " Landwirtschaftliche Fiitterungslehre " of Prof. v. 

 Wolff, of Hohenheim. The book embraces three sections, 

 dealing severally with the general laws of animal nutrition, 

 the food of farm animals, and the feeding of farm animals. 

 The most valuable part of the volume is the appendix 

 which consists of a series of six tables relating to (i) the 

 average composition and digestibility of farm foods ; (2) 

 the digestibility of food-stuffs ; (3) the nitrogen of foods 

 expressed as albuminoids and amides ; (4) feeding-stuffs 

 for farm annnals ; (5) percentage composition of different 

 parts of oxen, sheep, and pigs ; (6) composition of car- 

 case of oxen, sheep, and pigs. It is a coincidence that 

 the volume should have appeared at about the time when 

 the plaint went up at the meeting of the British Associa- 

 tion at Ipswich, that for purposes of teaching or cal- 

 culation we have to employ the results of German analyses 

 relating to crops and food grown in a difterent climate, 

 and under different conditions, from our own. In this way 

 expression was given to the fact that the essential parts of 

 Wolffs tables could be found in English books any time 

 within the last eighteen or twenty years, so that agricul- 

 tural students who were unable to read Wolffs work in 

 the original were, nevertheless, not greatly handicapped. 

 The circumstance that Wolffs investigations have in this 

 way been so thoroughly " exploited " by English writers 

 will no doubt impair the freshness and originality such 

 as would have been associated with a translation of the 

 treatise when it first appeared in 1874. 



The examples that are given have a distinctly Teutonic 

 flavour, and we may be pardoned for saying that, from our 

 standpoint, they are somewhat academical. English 

 farmers know nothing, for example, of potato slump, and 

 Scotch farmers have to fatten their bullocks without 

 mangel. Yet German beef is not to be mentioned in the 

 same breath as the prime juicy joints of British growth, 

 and German farmers have yet to bring their practice up 

 to the level of turning out finished steers at three years old. 

 A problem of far greater interest than any of those dis- 

 cussed would have been : Given a breeding flock of 500 

 or 1000 ewes to carry through such a season as either of 

 the last two winters in Great Britain, with frosts severe 

 and forage scarce, how would it best be done ? English 

 sheep-breeders solved this problem, and if they study 

 this volume they will without doubt give due weight to 

 the words (p. 105) : "it is evident that our methods for the 

 chemical analysis of food-stuffs, as well as our knowledge 

 of the peculiar properties and proportions of different 

 food-constituents, leave much to be desired." 



The translator has done his work carefully, but he is 

 not happy in his prefatory remarks, which show a 

 lack of familiarity with English agricultural literature. 

 When he refers to " the rather obtrusive fact that the 

 book is simply the record of forty-two years' work by the 

 experimental stations of the German Government on the 

 feeding of farm animals," and further on says that "per- 

 haps the most valuable feature of the book is that of the 

 tables given in the appendix," he apparently overlooks 

 the circumstance that at least two of the six tables are, 

 as is acknowledged by Wolff himself, based principally 

 on the results of Lawes and Gilbert, as published in the 

 Philosophical Transactions in 1859 and 1883. But the 

 reader will be prepared to overlook much when he sees 



