February, 1902.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



41 



parts of the country to be connected for speech. 'Mr. Wells 

 says nothing about automatic telephone exchanges or the pos- 

 sibility of telephony without intervening wires, but the changes 

 he foreshadows will not be affected by developments of this 

 kind. He is. in fact, more concerned with the effects of inven- 

 tion and increased knowledge upon the social organism than 

 with future meclianical accomplishments. He predicts the 

 downfall of Democracy and the creation of a Xew Republic in 

 which the engineering and scientific class will exert dominant 

 influence. The present order of things will pass away, and in 

 the new heaven and new earth which Jlr. Wells forecasts 

 intellect will reign .supreme. The author is no mere iconocliist, 

 but an acute observer who examines the stream of tendency 

 from many points of view and describes how use may be made 

 of its flood. His conclusions will not be accepted by all students 

 of human nature, but every reader o£ the book will be influenced 

 by its forcible argument. Using the material available he 

 establishes the New Republic about the year 20Ui i, but knowing 

 something of social inertia we suggest that two or three 

 thousand years later would be nearer the epoch of the mil- 

 lenium. Mr. Wells' book appeals to every thoughtful mind, 

 and, we believe, it will have a decided influence upon the trend 

 of social evolution. 



"Last Words ox M.\tkiualism and Kisdred Suiwects.'' 

 By Prof. Ludwig Biichner, m.d. With a life of the Author by 

 Prof. Alex. Biichner. Translated by Joseph McCabe. (Watts.) 

 6s. net. — The title of this book is an unfortunate one. Prof. 

 Buohner was not a materialist. He insists, again and again, 

 in these essays that the system of thought he advocated is more 

 accurately described as monism. The fact is there are no 

 msterialists. Thebeginningof thenew century sees twoopposing 

 schools of thought ; on the one side are the monists, with whom 

 Ludwig Biichner would be found were he still alive, and on the 

 other, are the dualists. Moreover, so long as the inorganic world 

 alone is under consideration there is, to all intents and purposes, 

 no difference between the monist and his opponent. When, 

 however, the phenomena of life and consciousness call for 

 explanation the difference between them is clear enough. The 

 monist recognises no break between the inorganic and the 

 organic worlds ; the great principles of the conservation of 

 matter and energy, and the other laws of physical science, are, he 

 urges, as true of living things as any others. The dualist, on the 

 contrary, maintains that satisfactorily to explain the organic 

 world it is necessary to postulate a second cause, an effect of 

 which when we come to study man, is found in his " soul.' It 

 is hardly necessary to remind readers of Knowi.euge that a 

 large number of men of science are monists. As to the 

 ultimate cause of all existence the man of science knows 

 nothing, nor indeed does there seem any possibilitj' of his 

 knowing. J[r. Herbert Spencer has, to questions of this sort, 

 given the name the " unknowable." But the great fact for 

 practical men is that the '"unknown'" and the "unknowable" 

 are by no means synonymous. With the triumphant march of 

 science the " unkuown " is every day having to reduce its 

 boundaries, and this is incentive enough for the man of science. 

 There has been in the past an opprobrium attaching to the 

 name materialist, due probably to the uneducated advocacy of 

 men who were concerned less with the advance of scientific 

 knowledge than with the overthrow of dogmatic theology. 

 The name might very well be allowed to die ; and, if at the 

 same time, those who find no need in the universe for any 

 dualistic hypothesis are content simply to try to advance 

 natural knowledge and to leave religious systems to take care of 

 themselves, we shall be .saved much useless controversy and have 

 energy to sp.are for more important work. The world is for- 

 tunately beginning to understand that the practical matter of 

 conduct is influenced much less by dogmas held on faith than was 

 originally thought. To return to Mr. McL'abe's translation, it 

 is on the whole well done, though we think it is a pity that 

 somebody conversant with technical terms did not revise the 

 translation. Had this been done we should not have to call 

 attention to such irritating mistakes as "phosphor'' for " phos- 

 phorns" (pp. 41-J), ••corbonio" for "carbonic" (p. 50), 

 "sulphuretted .antimony" (p. 3'!), and so on. 



•'Lectikks ank Kssavs." By the late William Kingdon 

 Clifford. Jn two volumes. (Macmillan.) 10s. — The addition 

 of these lectures and essays, first published in 1879, to the 

 widely popular Eversley series will give the younger generation 

 of students of science who are unfamiliar with Clifford's views, 



an opportunity of benefiting by these remarkably lucid 

 expositions of fundamentally important subjects and of miking 

 the acquaintance of two beautifully produced volumes. As Sir 

 Frederick Pollock says in a biographical preface, Clifford 

 " expressed his own views plainly and strongly because he held 

 it the duty of every man so to do ; he could not discuss great 

 subjects in a half-hearted fashion under a system of mutual 

 conventions." He always discussed metaphysical and theological 

 problems with exactly the same freedom from preconceived 

 conclusions and fearlessness of consequences as any other 

 problems. He always went to the root of matters under 

 consideration. Taking as his subject ordinary questions of 

 everyday life, on which all men ponder, he would so probe and 

 analyse them that his hearers understood before he had finished 

 that, having obtained clear views on the simple affairs of 

 conduct and belief, they were well on the wav to grasp all the 

 philosophy that really concerned them. " Body and Mind,'' 

 "Right and Wrong," "The Ethics of Belief," are examples of 

 the "questions that Clifford loved to explain to intelligent 

 audiences. " The domain of science," he .said on one occasion, 

 " is all possible human knowledge which can rightly be used to 

 guide human conduct." Xo bounds must be set to the "puri- 

 fying and organizing work of science.'' It is not surprising that 

 so fearless a thinker and so brave a prophet was often disliked 

 and dreaded. Naturally, the doctrine that "it is wrong in all 

 cases to believe on insuflicient evidence ; and where it is pre- 

 sumption to doubt and investigate, there it is worse than 

 presumption to beheve" — did not endear Clifford to official 

 theologists. But the more intelligent views which are common 

 to-day are to be tnaced to men like Clitt'crd, who, regardless of 

 what pleased this or that sect, preached truth for truth's sake, 

 and maintained that all truth is the heritage of humanity and 

 mu<t not be withheld because priests and church officials say the 

 masses cannot bear it yet. The young student of science, 

 nurtured in orthodoxj',' who is finding himself in pain and 

 travail as he first applies the scientific method to the dogmas he 

 was taught in childhood, should read and study these essays. 

 Here are the words of a master who has passed along the same 

 road, who though he discarded many of the myths of the 

 infancy of the race, never lost his grasp of the great ethical and 

 moral principles on which the social welfare of mankind will 

 always depend. 



"Studies in Heterogenf.sis." By Prof. H. Charlton 

 Bastian, M.A., M.n., f.r.s. First Part. Illustrated. (Williams 

 it Norgate.) 7s. 6d. — The conclusions arrived at by Prof. Bastian 

 are so opposed to the teachings of modern biologists that we 

 cannot but be surprised at theif enunciation by a Fellow of the 

 Royal Society. 'The thesis which he endeavours to establish is, 

 in general terms, that from one presumably pure substance of 

 an organism it is possible to produce various alien forms of life. 

 In support of this view, among other observations described and 

 illustrated, are the transformation of the contents of vegetal 

 cells and organisms into such forms of life as amoebiE, actino- 

 phrys, and monad cysts : of the substance of certain encysted 

 ciliates into amcebi and monads : and of the substance of the 

 eggs of certain rotifers into primitive fungoid sporangia and 

 ciliated infusoria. The natural interpretation to put upon the 

 observations would be that the changes described are due to the 

 multiplication of forms of life of which the germs existed in the 

 original substance, or which invaded it. Prof. Bastian has 

 considered this interpretation but has rejected it in favour of 

 the conclusion " that the resulting forms of life are, in reality, 

 heterogenetic products originating from the very substance of 

 the organisms or of the germs from which they proceed." Such 

 a heterodox opinion is not likely to be accepted upon the 

 evidence he brings forward, but to disprove it would be as 

 difficult as it was to overthrow the doctrine of spontaneous 

 generation. Tne subject can only be dealt with adequately by 

 biologists trained in the exact methods used by Pasteur and his 

 followers, and we believe they would object to the conditions 

 under which many of the observations were made. 



"A Ready Aid to DisTiMaisii the Com.moner Wn.n 

 Birds oi- Great Britain.'' By David T.Price. (Gurney & 

 Jackson).— In this little book the author has made a poor 

 attempt to carry out an idea which would be of value if it could 

 be successfully accomplished. Mr. Price begins with a sort of 

 key by which on seeing a bird in the garden, field, or wood, one is 

 supposed to be able to judge its species. For this purpose a 

 much more exact and more wisely arranged key than that 



