NA TURE 



[January 29, 1903 



duties performed in a single ship are vastly different 

 affairs. 



The present system, however, as we have seen, bars 

 the promotion of a navigating officer to the higher ranks. 

 So that all the admirals, the future leaders of our 

 battle fleets, eventually to be selected from among the 

 187 captains to whom we have referred, will be the least 

 instructed and least practised in navigation and all that 

 navigation means in the way of handling ships. 



We are told that information with regard to the promo- 

 tion of gunnery and torpedo officers is much more 

 difficult to obtain, but this is of little importance, as their 

 functions are necessarily limited to single ships and can 

 have no bearing on tactics or the leading of fleets into 

 action. 



To the plain man, this result seems curious. Other 

 reasons than that we have suggested have been given, 

 but whatever the reason may be — we are not concerned 

 either to attack or defend the Admiralty — we may hope 

 that under the new system the apparent paradox will 

 disappear, and it seems a pity to wait until then. 



There is one part of the scheme of instruction which 

 calls for criticism in a scientific journal. We read of 

 special schools of gunnery, engineering and torpedo 

 work, but no school of navigation is referred to. 



It is a question whether an officer who has been 

 generally trained and has been six years at sea will 

 derive any benefit from going to a land college to learn 

 navigation. What is really wanted to complete the 

 scheme on true scientific lines is a navigation school afloat 

 at this period of the officer's career where each member 

 of the batch could take charge, under proper supervision 

 of course, not only in tideways and strong currents, among 

 traffic and in entering and leaving harbours, but in the 

 open Atlantic. 



This condition might be utilised by sending Marconi 

 ethergrams, which would not only enable the Meteor- 

 ological Office vastly to improve its service, but would 

 give the young officers an interest in meteorology, a 

 science which is still important to those who go to sea, 

 though we find no reference to it in the memorandum. 



Another important point that would be gained by this 

 method of procedure would be to teach the officer that 

 the roll of his ship will depend to some extent upon its 

 presentation to the sea running at the time, so that there 

 will be courses on which the fighting platform can be made 

 more stable than on others. With homogeneous fleets, 

 this may replace the "getting to windward "of old days 

 preparatory to a naval engagement. 



A PSYCHOLOGIST ON EVOLUTION. 

 Development and Evolution ; including Psychophysical 

 Evolution, Evolution by Orthoplasy, and the Theory 

 of Genetic Modes. By James Mark Baldwin, Ph.D. 

 Princeton, Hon. D.Sc. Oxon., LL.D. Glasgow, Stuart 

 Professor in Princeton University. Pp. xvi + 392. 

 (New York : The Macmillan Company ; London : 

 Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1902.) Price \os. 6d. net. 



THE theory of evolutionary method to which the name 

 of "Organic Selection" has been generally applied 

 was independently originated by Profs. Baldwin, Osborn 

 and Lloyd Morgan. It has been accepted in its main 

 NO. 1735, VOL. 67] 



features by many leading biologists, who see in it a 

 probable interpretation of numerous facts which have 

 hitherto been felt as difficulties in the way of the Dar- 

 winian explanation of evolutionary processes. It has 

 even been considered to afford a prospect of reconciliation 

 between the Neo-Lamarckians and the impugners of the 

 hereditary transmission ot acquired characters, though 

 there can be no doubt that for the former party its 

 adoption would mean nothing less than the surrender of 

 the central citadel of their position. 



In the present volume, Prof. Baldwin has not only given 

 a detailed account of the theory in all its bearings, but 

 has also brought together in the form of appendices the 

 original statements of the same principle by Osborn and 

 Lloyd Morgan, besides valuable comments by other 

 authorities, including Prof. Poulton, Prof. Conn and 

 Mr. Headley. The reader of" Development and Evolu- 

 tion" is thus furnished with ample material for forming a 

 judgment on the significance of the views summed up 

 under the general headings of " Organic Selection " and 

 " Orthoplasy.'' 



The relation of these views to the theories that may be 

 roughly grouped as " preformist " on the one hand and 

 " Lamarckian" on the other is stated by Prof. Baldwin 

 with admirable clearness as follows : — 



" If we give up altogether the principle of modification 

 by use and disuse, and the possibility of new adjustments 

 in a creature's lifetime, we must go back to the strictest 

 preformism. But to say that such new adjustments in- 

 fluence phylogenetic evolution only in case they are in- 

 herited is to go over to the theory of Lamarckism. Now 

 the position is that these individual adjustments are real 

 (versus preformism), that they are not inherited (versus 

 Lamarckism), and yet that they influence evolution. 

 These adjustments keep certain creatures alive, so put a 

 premium on the variations which they represent, so 

 'determine' the direction of variation and give the 

 phylum time to perfect as congenital the same functions 

 which were thus at first only private accommodations. 

 Thus the same result may have come about in many cases 

 as if the Lamarckian view of heredity were true. The 

 general principle, therefore, that new adjustments 

 effected by the individual may set the direction of 

 evolution without the inheritance of acquired characters 

 is what was considered new and was called organic 

 selection." (Italics Prof. Baldwin's.) 



In claiming elsewhere that the "broader principle of 

 organic selection from certain points of view is new," the 

 author is careful to allow that it was not only in some 

 degree foreshadowed by Darwin, but that in the special 

 instance of " social heredity " (better called " social trans- 

 mission '') its importance has been emphasised by Wallace 

 and other writers. "Of course, to us all," as Prof. 

 Baldwin says," ' newness ' is nothing compared with ' true- 

 ness'" ; nevertheless, the credit undoubtedly belongs to 

 him of having independently discerned the real signifi- 

 cance in evolution of individual adjustments, and of 

 havingfteen perhaps the first to put the relation between 

 ontogeny andphylogeny, and between organic and social 

 evolution, on a basis that should be satisfactory at once 

 to the biologist and the philosopher. 



It must not be forgotten that Prof. Baldwin is primarily 

 a psychologist, andus apt to consider evolutionary ques- 

 tions largely from the psychological standpoint. In 

 expounding his idea of the " psychophysical unit " ; in his 



