March 12, 1896] 



NATURE 



44] 



review is rather scanty. It includes a short paper on the 

 American Tertiary Aphida?, by Mr. Scudder.' This com- 

 prises a Ust of known species and five plates. A mono- 

 graph, by the same author, on the Tertiary Rhyncho- 

 phorous Coleopicra - contains descriptions and figures of 

 a j^reat number of new genera and species, 193 species 

 having been found in the older American Tertiaries, while 

 only 1 50 species have been described from the whole of the 

 European Tertiary rocks. This makes a first instalment 

 towards a history of fossil Coleoptera. 



Mr. Whitfield has written a description of the mollusca 

 and Crustacea of the Miocene formation of New Jersey.-' 

 This work, which is illustrated by twenty-four plates, 

 describes the only brachiopod and cirripede found in 

 these beds, with a large number of gasteropoda and 

 lamelli-branchiata, many of which are now described for 

 the first time. 



Mr. C. R. Keyes gives, in Bulletin 121,* a bibliography 

 of North American Palaeontology 1888- 1892. This com- 

 prises 251 pages, and in an alphabetical series are included 

 a list of names of authors, with a short synopsis of 

 essential points, including lists of genera and species de- 

 scribed and figured, a title-index, and subject entries and 

 cross references. A list of subjects is given in the intro- 

 duction, and also a list of works examined, which may 

 save a good deal of trouble. The list is by no means 

 perfect, but it is undoubtedly a most important 

 contribution to bibliography. 



In a subsequent article it is proposed to deal with 

 researches in petrological, dynamical, and stratigraphical 

 .geography. 



OSTWALD'S ENERGETICS. 

 T N the February xmvcCo^x oi Scietice Progress there is an 

 •*■ interesting article, by Prof. Ostwald, on " Emancipa- 

 tion from Scientific Materialism." There are so many 

 vague fallacies underlying it, that it would hardly be 

 worth answering, only that there is considerable risk that 

 others, chemists especially, may be carried away by the 

 arguments of one whom they rightly value as a leader in 

 their own domain when he descants positively about the 

 realm of mechanics. 



Prof Ostwald begins by saying that the current view 

 of a mechanical universe fails in two respects, (i) It 

 does not fulfil the purpose for which it was designed, and 

 1 2) it is inconsistent with known truths. It is, in the first 

 place, to be remarked that nobody who has considered 

 the matter really seriously can maintain that atoms and 

 motion must constitute the whole universe. Such a view 

 leaves thought out of account, and all that can be held is 

 that material phenomena are so explicable. Prof Ostwald 

 ignores such theories as that of vortex atoms, which pos- 

 tulate only a continuous liquid in motion ; but, it may be, 

 this is omitted because it is merely a way of explaining the 

 atoms. He also ignores metaphysical questions, such as 

 whether motion be not only the objective aspect of thought, 

 and also whether an intuitively necessary explanation of 

 the laws as distinct from the origin and consequent 

 arrangement of phenomena is not postulated by the fact 

 that the universe must be intelligible. Consequently his 

 attempt to deal with nature in a purely inductive spirit is 

 unphilosophical as well as unscientific. The view of 

 science which he puts forward — a sort of well-arranged 

 catalogue of facts without any hypotheses — is worthy of a 

 (ierman who plods by habit and instinct. A Briton 

 wants emotion-- something to raise enthusiasm, something 



J Thirteenth Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey, 

 1191-92. (1893.) 



- Monoerapk xxi., "The Tertiar>- Rhyncophorous Coleoptera of North 

 America.' By Samuel Hubbard Scudder. (1803.) 



■' Monographsof the Geological .Survey of the United States, vol. xxiv. 

 1.394.) 



■* Bulletin 121, "A Bibliography of North American Palseontology, 

 1S88-1892," by C. R. Keyes. (1894.) 



NO. 1376, VOL. 53] 



with a human interest. He is not content with dry cata- 

 logues ; he must have a theory of gravitation, a hypo- 

 thesis of natural selection. This deadly science without 

 hypothesis is far worse than the materialistic i^norabitnus 

 of Du Bois Reymond ; it is the culmination of the 

 pessimism of Schopenhauer. 



Prof. Ostwald's first line of attack is that the material- 

 istic hypothesis does not fulfil the purpose for which it 

 was designed. When this is investigated, it turns out 

 that all he means is that everything in nature has not 

 yet been explained on mechanical principles. And long 

 may it be so. The zest of science is discovery. If every- 

 thing were explained — well, it is so far off we may wait 

 till it comes to describe what will happen. He notices 

 several thiiigs which are certainly not explained yet. 

 Such, for instance, as why when atoms combine they 

 produce a result so very different from their components. 

 As nobody has yet suggested any reason why the atoms- 

 themselves possess the very curious properties they do, 

 we can hardly expect a satisfactory explanation of why 

 these properties change when they combine. Any way, 

 the existence of an uninvestigated region of this kind 

 does not create any reasonable doubt as to the founda- 

 tions of the road that has led us well so far. 



His second attack is deliberately founded on this, that 

 mechanical hypotheses have not yet been found to ex- 

 plain every thmg. "I grant," he says, "that for many 

 individual phenomena the mechanical analogues have 

 been given with more or less success. But all attempts- 

 to completely represent the whole of the known facts in 

 any department by means of some such mechanical 

 analogue have resulted without exception in some un- 

 explainable contradiction between what really happens- 

 and what we should expect from our mechanical model. 

 This contradiction may long remain hidden ; but the 

 history of science teaches us that it sooner or later makes 

 its inevitable appearance, and that all we can sjiy with 

 complete certainty regarding such mechanical similes or 

 analogues — usually termed mechanical theories of the 

 phenomena in question — is that they will doubtless ori 

 some occasion fail." 



All that this really means is that we have not yet 

 explained everything on mechanical principles, and that 

 when we do get a little way on, we are delayed again by 

 something more that requires explanation. But surely 

 this and nothing else is what we ought in all reason to- 

 expect. It is about the best test we have that we are orv 

 the right track. Prof Ostwald cites optical theories as 

 an example of the kind of failure he refers to. He 

 seems for some extraordinary reason to imagine that the 

 elastic solid theory of the ether is in some curious way 

 specially connected with the mechanical hypothesis of 

 the universe. It is far from being so. The mechanical 

 theory of an elastic solid itself has been only very 

 dimly foreshadowed, and Prof Ostwald's contention that 

 transverse vibration " presupposes a solid body " is irk 

 direct contradiction to Lord Kelvin's theorem that a 

 liquid in turbulent motion could transmit transverse 

 vibrations. Even Lord Kelvin's elastic solid ether in a 

 state of tension could exist if it be infinite, so that here 

 again Prof Ostwald is mistaken in saying that, because 

 it could not be stable if finite, it can have no physical 

 existence. And finally Prof Ostwald takes refuge in the 

 as yet unexplained constitution of an ether whose 

 properties were discovered by assuming them to be 

 mechanical, and were only disco\ ered about thirty years 

 ago, and have not been seriously investigated until within 

 the last ten years. Surely no argument can be based 

 upon the fact that there are limits to our present 

 knowledge. 



Prof Ostwald's third attack opens out a new view. We 

 see here a human reason for his desire for emancipatioiv 

 from the mechanical hypothesis. He is dissatisfied with 

 Du Bois Reymond's ignorabiinus. But even Du Bois- 



