Marcu 19, 1914] 
the matter is too much an echo of the claims and 
hopes of the various inventors, as recorded in 
their patent specifications, and too little an account 
of processes in actual use in the factories which 
turn out tungsten filaments on a commercial scale. 
In fact, very few even of those readers who wade 
through the whole ninety or so pages about these 
lamps will have gained the faintest idea of these 
processes. A reduction of this portion of the 
book would have given space for a description of 
the Nernst lamp and its properties, which lamp 
certainly deserves more than a casual mention. 
(4) The last of the books before us can be 
recommended to those who would prefer to read 
the matter in German. The ground taken up is, 
for the most part, thoroughly discussed from the 
theoretical point of view, and the British reader 
will probably come across some instructive ideas 
which are new to him. In places there is a ten- 
dency to ignore facts which do not lend themselves 
to a simple theory, and there is a leaning to the 
physical side of the subject rather than to the 
engineering side. There are also some statements 
which give the reader quite a wrong impression, 
because they are not accompanied by a statement 
of the very special conditions to which they apply. 
For instance, we are told that the E.M.F. 
ring armature is 
poles, while the power is proportional to that 
number, in such a way that the reader would take 
the statement to apply to a given armature, 
whereas it would only apply if the size of the arma- 
ture were increased along with the number of 
poles so that each of the latter might be kept 
of a constant size. The book does not contain, as 
a knowledge of English books with equivalent 
titles might lead one to expect, any structural 
details or views of machines. Still, it is well 
worth reading, and certainly merits a more sub- 
stantial binding than the publisher has given it. 
; DR: 
of a 
SCLENCE- AND: ..PHILOSOPHY. 
(1) Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. New 
Bees. Vol, xii: . Pp: -375-.. (London: Wil-’ 
liams and Norgate, 1913.) Price 1os. 6d. net. 
(2) Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences. 
Vol. i.: Logic. By A. Ruge, W. Windelband, 
J. Royce, and others. Translated by B. Ethel 
Meyer. Pp. x+269. (London: Macmillan and 
Wo wibtdeasons.) Price 7s: 6d. net: 
(3) Evolution by Cooperation. A Study in Bio- 
Economics. By H. Reinheimer. Pp. xiv + 200. 
(London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner and 
(Sp. Lids io1g.). Price. 3s=-6d.:.net. 
NO: 2216, VOL! 93: 
independent of the number of | 
NATURE 
classified facts. 
tion was a philosophical view; so is Bergson’s 
posed to do no harm.” 
ai) 
(4) The Science of the Sciences. By H. Jamyn 
Brooks. Pp. 312+ix. (London: David Nutt, 
n.d.) Price 3s. 6d. net. 
(5) Probleme der Entwicklung des Geistes. Die 
Geistesformen. By S. Meyer. Pp. v-+429. 
Leipzig: J. A. Barth, 1913.) Price 13 marks. 
(6) Naturphilosophische Plaudereien. Bys sEi 
Potonié. Pp. v+194. (Jena: Gustav Fischer, 
1913.) Pricé 2 marks. 
LATO dreamed of a dialectic that should be 
the science of the sciences, and philosophers 
have often assumed that philosophy is the essence 
of knowledge, into which are distilled the results 
of empirical research. Metaphysical logic may be 
considered to assist science by suggesting new 
modes of generalisation, new points of view for 
Darwin’s theory of natural selec- 
estimate of mind. Every -ism is of this nature; 
Wreismannism and Mendelism, neo-Darwinism 
and Pragmatism, are examples. Mathematics is 
equally suggestive of new generalisations; the 
work of Galton and of Karl Pearson are cases in 
point. The ®¢ formula of Mr. William Schooling 
is perhaps the most recent. But it is arguable 
that all such generalisations are ultimately them- 
selves suggested by new facts, and simply show 
the mind’s plasticity of reaction to new environ- 
ments. It is arguable that they are inevitable 
and obvious, once given the particular concatena- 
tion of facts suggesting them, but that the dis- 
covery of new concatenations of facts is not at 
all beholden to philosophical suggestion. It is 
| said that the inductive idea suggested to Bacon 
a new mode of research; on the contrary, it was 
the increase in observed facts and new concatena- 
tions of facts that suggested the inductive idea. 
The study of forms of thought develops with 
the material for thought, witness the developments 
introduced by Poincaré and Bertrand Russell. 
The latter’s analysis, in (1) “The Proceedings of 
the Aristotelian Society,” of the notion of cause 
is a refreshing proof of philosophical vitality. 
The word “cause,” he says, “is so inextricably 
bound up with misleading associations as to make 
its complete extrusion from the philosophical 
vocabulary desirable.” He well points out that 
advanced sciences like gravitational astronomy, 
even physics in general, never employ the term 
“cause.” “The reason why physics has ceased 
to look for causes is that, in fact, there are no 
such things. The law of causality, I believe, like 
much that passes muster among philosophers, is 
a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the 
monarchy, only because it is erroneously sup- 
What scientific laws do, 
