il ll el, 
OcTOBER 30, 1913] 
NATURE 
263 
chemistry in the past and is likely to prove equally 
valuable to all in the future. No other text-book 
is so exhaustive and yet relatively still readable. 
We have taken the opportunity to test it somewhat 
severely and always found the desired information. 
The new edition does, however, afford an oppor- 
tunity of noting the enormous increase in our 
knowledge of this part of organic chemistry—em- 
bracing the carbocyclic and heterocyclic com- 
pounds. Our former copy of the ninth edition, 
bearing the date 1go1, is a modest little work of 
809 pages, measuring 4x6 inches. The new 
edition requires 1048 pages, measuring 44x7 
inches. 
Even in 1900 the would-be chemist made some 
attempt to master the whole of Richter—to-day 
this is obviously impossible, and the student is 
forced to specialise at an early stage in his 
reading. Fortunately, chemical literature is now 
enriched by very many special monographs of 
a very readable character and free from too much 
elaboration of detail. When these are supple- 
mented by Richter—the encyclopedia of chem- 
istry—the student is indeed well armed. We have 
one suggestion only—namely, the author’s name, 
as well as the journal reference, should be quoted 
in the references to the original literature. The 
omission of the author’s name prevents reference 
to the abstracts of the original in the Journal of 
the Chemical Society or in the Centralblatt when 
the original paper itself is not available. 
(5), (6) These translations of well-known stand- 
ard German works testify to the rank taken 
by German science in other lands: they are 
already well known in this country. The second 
part of vol. iii. of Prof. Neumann’s technical 
analysis contains Schultz’s famous monograph on 
coal tar and artificial colouring matters, which 
already has a world-wide reputation and forms 
an appropriate complement to Germany’s most 
famous chemical industry. This is the second 
French edition translated from the third German 
edition of the work. 
Prof. Corvisy’s book is a translation for the 
first time of the fifth German edition of the first 
volume of Erdmann’s well-known work. The 
translator refers to the need of such a work in 
France, where no other book is available for 
students covering the ground in quite the same ° 
way. 
(7) This book is intended to be actually used 
as a laboratory note-book in schools, the pupil 
having to write his answers in the spaces in the 
text left for the purpose. Precise instructions are 
given how to do everything and what to observe 
and infer, and in quantitative exercises only the 
actual figures have to be filled in by the schoolboy. 
NO. 2296, VOL. 92] 
The book is elaborately bound and somewhat 
expensive. We fear we do not agree with the 
author’s interpretation of practical chemistry ; 
indeed, we had hoped that books of this type 
had ceased to exist. [Dap ie watc 
PROBLEMS OF LIFE AND REALITY. 
(1) Essais de Synthése Scientifique. By E. 
Rignano. Pp. xxi+294. (Paris: F. Alcan, 
1912.) Price 5 francs. 
(2) Contre la Métaphysique. 
Poe2qcey a(barisc: oh.) Alcan, 
3 frances 75 centimes. 
(3) Modern Science and the Illusions of Prof. 
Bergson. By H. S. R. Elliot. With a preface 
by Sir Ray Lankester, K.C.B., F.R.S. Pp. 
By F. Le Dantec. 
1912.) Price 
xix +257. (London: Longmans, Green and 
Col @on2. rice 5s. net. 
(4) Wissenschaft wnd Wirklichkeit. By Max 
Frischeisen-Kéhler. Pp. viii+478. (Berlin: 
B. G. Teubner, 1912.) Price 8 marks. 
(5) The Young Nietzsche. By Frau Forster- 
Nietzsche. Translated by A. M. Ludovici. Pp. 
viii+399. (London: W. Heinemann, 1912.) 
Pricearss. net: 
HE first two of these volumes contain a 
curiously similar plea for the theorist in 
science. M. Rignano in his opening essay (1) 
maintains that there are a number of central 
problems in the biological sciences, in which there 
is almost a deadlock, due to the fact that they 
have been attacked exclusively by two opposite 
groups of specialists. One such problem, awaiting 
the synthetic view, is that of the nature of life 
and growth. Others are: the meaning of religion 
as viewed from the psychological and the socio- 
logical points of view; the economic and ideologic 
factors in history; the antithesis of socialism and 
liberal economics. These are dealt with in succes- 
sive essays. In the first the various transformist 
theories are reviewed, in order to demonstrate 
how far-reaching may be the clarifying effects of 
a single piece of theorising. At the same time 
the leit-motiv of the whole volume is introduced 
—the mnemonic principle. The recapitulation of 
phylogenetic development in ontogenesis is essen- 
tially mnemonic, as is assimilation. 
The same principle is next applied more in 
detail to the problem of growth, by means of a 
summary of the author’s “centro-epigenetic ” 
theory of development. This asserts that growth 
| is determined by a nervous circulation, indepen- 
| dent of a nervous system, consisting of discharges 
| of specific nervous energy accumulated in the 
| germ-plasm, each discharge depositing a sub- 
stance apt in decomposing to regenerate the same 
