194 



NATURE 



[December 29, 1904 



of society, the " stafjnant " masses as he would call 

 them. From this stratum emerjje the men of energy 

 so dear to Mr. Wells's heart. Occasionally the son 

 of a poor man, say in Scotland or Yorkshire, rises to 

 eminence. Far more often it takes more than one 

 generation to climb the ladder. But this does not alter 

 the fact that this substratum is an absolute necessity. 

 For the upper strata do not keep up their numbers, 

 and society has been truly described as an organism 

 that is perpetually renewing itself from its base. But 

 Mr. \\'ells knows only of the abyss into which tumble 

 all the failures of modern life. Such a valuable 

 national asset as peasant land-holders he despises and 

 wishes to abolish. Yet from such " stagnant " classes 

 spring the families that work upward and produce the 

 men of energy that do the highest work of the nation. 

 The downward movement of which Mr. Wells talks 

 so much is comparatively but a puny stream. \o 

 doubt there is an abyss, no doubt there are in our big 

 towns not a few degraded families which are tending 

 10 die out. Yet even the most degraded produce here 

 and there a man of grit, a man, for instance, who 

 enlists and rises to be a non-commissioned officer. 

 The pick of the slum-bred men make fine fighters. 



Mr. Wells wishes all citizens to be energetic and 

 up to date. The unadaptable masses must be got rid 

 of. They must be instructed so that the indulgence 

 of their sexual instincts may not lead to their having 

 offspring. Reckless parentage must be in everv wav 

 discouraged. And yet Mr. Wells declares that he 

 cannot devise any system of selection bv which it 

 would be possible to breed good citizens ; the qualities 

 demanded are too diverse. So we are to get rid of 

 the reckless classes and depend solely on the careful 

 classes. We are to introduce careful parentage, that 

 is, put a stop to natural selection ; but there is to be 

 no scientific selection to take its place. The result 

 would indeed be disastrous. As it is, our national 

 physique may be poor, but what there is in the nation 

 of physical vigour is due to the great amount of 

 elimination, probably not far short of 50 per cent., 

 that still goes on. 



Here is another strange forecast. \\'ar is " the 

 most educational of all masters," and yet after manv 

 years a great world state will arise and there will be 

 a kind of millennium. If war the great educator, 

 the great antiseptic, is no more, surely the world is 

 likely to be the worse for its absence. What is to 

 make the world better? No doubt Mr. Wells would 

 say, "The advance of science." Science is his sheet 

 anchor. It is to ennoble the national life so that even 

 the idle holders of irresponsible wealth will be power- 

 less to degrade it. But will this be so? No doubt the 

 inventor is ennobled by his brain labour, by his striving 

 to make his dream a reality. And the men of energy 

 who find practical applications of his discoveries are 

 doing work of a kind that often, though not always, 

 elevates the character. But what of the people who 

 merely make use of the discoveries and inventions of 

 others? The man who invents a locomotive engine 

 is likely, at the lowest, to be above the pettiest mean- 

 nesses. But the mere travelling in railway trains 

 leaves men morally no better and no worse. The 

 striving after knowledge is the ennobling thing, and 

 NO. 1835, '^OL. 71] 



not the knowledge itself, the making of discoveries, 

 not the enjoyment of them. 



This being so, there is a fallacy running all through 

 that very humorous romance " The Food of the 

 Gods "; in the story those who are fed on this food' 

 in their infancy and youth grow to a height of some 

 forty feet. The inventors do not add to their inches. 

 In its application this is not true. The mass of man- 

 kind remain small in brain and character — they grow, 

 but do not grow much, when their ^-outh is nurtured' 

 on the clearest and noblest ideas. The few thinkers, 

 discoverers, inventors are the giants. As to education, 

 Mr. Wells has much to say that is worth pondering. 

 He wishes boys to make a real study of the English 

 language and literature. On our success in teaching 

 English and producing good literature depends the 

 answer to the question : Will English retreat before 

 the tongue of some rival synthesis, or will it become 

 the language of the world? For educational pur- 

 poses, the dead languages, as we might expect, are 

 tried and found wanting. Those who teach them are- 

 " fumbling with the keys at the door of a room that 

 was ransacked long ago." F. W'. H. 



BRITISH FRESHWATER ALG.E. 

 A Treatise on the British Freshu'ater Algae. By Prof. 



G. S. West. Pp. XV + 372. (Cambridge: At the 



University Press, 1904.) Price los. 6d. net. 

 .•1 Monograph of the British Desmidiaceae. Vol. i. 



By \\'. West and Prof. G. S. West. Pp. xxxvi + 224. 



(London : Printed for the Ray Society, 1904.) Price 



J5S. net. 



WHOEVER has sought to gain a practical know- 

 ledge of the British freshwater Algae has in 

 the past been often checked by the impossibility of 

 determining, by the aid of English works, manv of the 

 forms met with. During the twenty years that have 

 elapsed since the issue of the latest large English 

 work on the group (Cooke's " British Freshwater 

 Algae ") very great progress has been made in most 

 countries of Europe, in North America, and to some 

 extent in other countries also, in the study of these 

 plants. Very many species previously unknown have 

 been detected, and much light has been thrown on' 

 obscure life-histories, on the effects of environment, 

 and on the relationships of the various AlgcB to one 

 another, and to other organisms of simple structure- 

 But while so much new knowledge has been gained, it 

 is dispersed in various languages and in numerous 

 volumes; and there has been, in English, no trust- 

 worthy guide even to the published results of these 

 years dealing with the British freshwater .Alga;. Thus- 

 it has become more and more difficult to pursue the 

 study with success, and the need of adequate present- 

 ation of the subject has been felt to he very urgent. 

 The works just issued by the Messrs. West are most 

 welcome, and mark a very gre;it advance on earlier 

 bonks in English dealing with these -Mgae. The 

 authors possess a unique knowledge of the species and 

 of their distribution in Britain, the result of personal 

 investigations carried on unwcariedly in many and 

 v.-iri(d districts of the British Islands. They have 



