The ^[euo Knowledge Series 

 Edited by Professor 



ROBERT KENNEDY DUNCAN 



editor of the scries, himself the author of an interesting 

 work on the New Knowledge. In his introductory preface 

 he agrees, as we must all do, that the living organism is a 

 mechanism; " but there is a certain demonstration that 

 the book does not contain, and that is, that because the 

 living organism is a mechanism it is necessarily an auto- 

 maton " (p. 7). 



If life [continues Prof. Kennedy] is supposed to be a transcen- 

 dental entity entering into or transacting the chemical processes^ 

 causing them in the sense of using energy, then there is"no evidence 

 that such an entity exists. But if on the contrary life is supposed 

 to be a transcendental entity that is associated with the body, and 

 in some measure interacts with it and guides it without interfer- 



THE NATURE AND ORIGIN 

 OF LIFE 



ence (and that is by no means inconceivable since recent physics 

 has plunged the ultimate nature of matter into such mystery) then 

 there seems nothing in Professor Le Dantec's book to make unrea^ 

 sonable a belief in the supposition, p. viij; 



We must be allowed to dissent utterly from the writer's 

 view that embryology is only the histology of very young 

 beings (p. 11), for in our opinion such a statement is as 

 inaccurate as would be the statement that history and 

 geography were the same thing. 



We must also protest against the issuing of a book such 

 as this is, crammed with arguments and facts, without any 

 trace of an index. Such an action is nothing short of an 

 QUtrage on the reading public. B.C.A.W. 



