city to bean independently sufficient mechanical explanation 



Xf descent, stand to-day seriously discredited in the bio- 

 )gical world" (p. 5). But that this is a view which he does 

 not himself wholly share is shown by his final statement 

 that 



Darwinism, then, as the natural selection of the fit, the final 

 arbiter in descent control, stands unscathed, clear and high above 

 the obscuring cloud of battle. At least so it seems to me. But 

 Darwinism, as the all-sufficient or even most important causo- 

 mechanical factor in species-forming, and hence as the sufficient 

 explanation of descent, is discredited and cast down. At least, again, 

 so it seems so me (p. 374). 



The evidence upon which this statement rests will be 

 found in the book, and is well worthy of careful study by 

 all those seriously interested in biological matters. 



There is one further point to which attention must be 

 directed. The author gives us the views of men like N&eli 

 and Korschinsky whose scientific evidence cannot be dispu- 

 ted and whose researches have led them to the conclusion 

 that there is in organisms "an intrinsic tendency towards 

 progress," "an inner law of development," "an inner direc- 

 tive force" (p. 278) by which can be explained the deriva- 

 tive of higher from lower forms. For views of this kind 

 and for those of the neo-vitalistic school our author has no 

 sort of use. "Such a surrender of all our hardly won, 

 actual, scientific knowledge in favour of an unknown, 

 unproved, mystic vital force we are not prepared to make" 

 (p.278).Andagain,"N^eirsautomaticperfectingprincipleis 

 an impossibility to the thorough-going evolutionist seeking 

 for a causo-mechanical explanation of change" (p. 387). 



But why? Apparently because the "thorough-going evo- 

 lutionist" of this type assumes as a first principle that there 

 can be nothing in nature which is not explicable on chemico- 

 physical lines. Is such an assumption legitimate? No, is the 

 answer made by a large number of men whose eminence as 

 biologists cannot'be gainsaid. Professor l^ellog speaks with 

 some scorn of papers written "by certain Roman Catholic 

 priests with a considerable amateur interest in natural his- 

 tory and a strong professional interest in anti-Darwinism 1 ' 

 (p. 30). Is he, we ask him to consider within himself, 

 wholly ignorant of certain scientific men with a considerable 

 amateur interest in philosophy and a strong professional 

 interest in anti- Vitalism? Science means or should mean 

 the pursuit of truth, wherever it may lie, and since it is 

 still possible that Najeli and others of like views, or even 

 the no doubt contemptible, though worthy, Roman 

 Catholic priests may be right and those on the other side 

 wrong, would it not be well to abstain from cocksure 

 declarations until things are a little clearer and a little 

 more certain than, say, those Darwinian views which 



