November 30, 1905 J 



NA TURE 



99 



variant readings, and many corrections of the text 

 due to this editor. 



(3) Hume's dialogues on natural religion run on 

 much the usual lines. The characters are three in 

 number, Demea the representative of believing 

 scepticism, Philo of unbelieving scepticism, and 

 Cleanthes of conciliatory rationalism. But there is 

 this peculiarity in Hume's treatment, that, while 

 there is no doubt that his own standpoint is that of 

 Philo, he has chosen to make Cleanthes the hero, and 

 concludes his work with the opinion that Philo's 

 principles are more probable than Demea 's, but that 

 .those of Cleanthes approach still nearer to the truth. 

 The essays on suicide and on the immortality of the 

 soul have been preserved only by accident, as their 

 .author attempted to suppress them. The German 

 translation and introduction are from the pen of the 

 well known professor in Berlin, and, like everything 

 published in this philosophical series, are excellent. 



(4) This volume contains about fifteen of Kant's 

 smaller metaphysical and logical works, some of them 

 translated from Latin, some of them written before 

 •the birth of the " critical " philosophy, not all of 

 •them interesting or important. They range over a 

 variety of themes, from the dreams of a spiritist (viz. 

 Swedenborg) to the well known prize-essay on the 

 progress of metaphysic since the time of Leibniz and 

 Wolf. This editor's introductions to the various 

 •essays and treatises are extremely helpful and 

 interesting. 



(5) The encyclopaedia, the only complete and 

 authentic statement of Hegel's system — best known 

 to English readers by the late Prof. Wallace's trans- 

 lations of its first and third parts — is here published 

 in an excellent form. In the introduction the editor 

 discusses (a) the fundamental ideas of the Hegelian 

 philosophy ; (b) philosophy as science ; (c) the encyclo- 

 paedia, and Hegel's relation to earlier systems. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 

 The Oxford Geographies. Vol. ii. The Junior Geo- 

 graphy. By A. J. Herbertson. Pp. 288. (Oxford : 

 Clarendon Press, 1905.) Price 2s. 

 When a school-book treats of the geography of the 

 whole world in less than 300 pages of large, clear 

 print, interspersed with abundant diagrams, its claim 

 to compete with the ordinary class-book must be 

 based on the substitution of quality for quantity, wise 

 selection and arrangement for all-including compre- 

 hensiveness. The book before us may fairly make 

 such a claim. There is nothing of the gazetteer about 

 it : its method is that of connected description ; in 

 place of statistical tables we have an abundance of 

 distribution-maps, and continents and countries are 

 divided according to physical features more than by 

 political boundaries. Thus in the case of England the 

 counties are entirely ignored, and the pupil is spared 

 the necessity of learning as many " facts " about 

 Oxfordshire as about Lancashire. So, too, in the 

 case of Europe, there is a special section on Alpine 

 lands, which renders possible a connected account of 

 the railway routes across the Alps, and should prevent 

 the rornmon misconception of the Alps as coextensive 

 with the political area of Switzerland. 



Nearly one-third of the book is occupied with the 

 British Isles, and about as much with Europe, the 

 NO. 1883, VOL. J 3} 



remainder being about equally divided between Asia, 

 Africa plus Australia, and America. It would be 

 easier to form a judgment on the opening part if the 

 " Preliminary Geography," which is intended to 

 precede it, had been published. As it stands, this 

 opening part, consisting of a large number of dis- 

 tribution-maps (orographical, climatic, industrial, &c.) 

 of the British Isles, with a discussion of their mean- 

 ing and relations, is full of suggestiveness to the 

 enthusiastic teacher, and in his hands is capable of 

 expansion into a course of practical geography. 



In such a book the critic can, of course, find plenty 

 of missing " facts," though we have found remark- 

 ably few of first-rate importance. Several which we 

 failed to find in the text turned up in the maps, which 

 is just as well in view of the importance which the 

 author attaches to the study of maps. (" Look at 

 the map and notice ..." is a constantly recurring 

 phrase.) Chicago, it is true, appears to be only 

 casually mentioned on p. 262, without any allusion 

 to its unique geographical position with reference to 

 the Mississippi basin and the great lakes; and along 

 with the trans-Alpine routes to which we have already 

 referred we should have expected to find some account 

 of the longitudinal route of the Orient express. 

 While the numerous diagram-maps form one of the 

 best features of the book, their execution is unequal, 

 the lettering on some being indistinct and the shading 

 sometimes amateurish. In the map of the chief 

 North American railways the names of the lines 

 might be given as far as possible, and the route of 

 the projected Grand Trunk Pacific continued to Port 

 Simpson instead of ending at Winnipeg; while in 

 Fig. 22 it seems unnecessary to distinguish part of 

 the Scotch coal-fields merely because the coal is of 

 Lower Carboniferous age. A. M. D. 



Organic Evolution. By C. W. Saleeby, M.D. Pp. 



124. (London and Edinburgh : T. C. and E. C. 



Jack, n.d.) Price is. net. 

 Dr. Saleeby has written a little book on a great 

 subject, and there is much to admire in his achieve- 

 ment. Without technicalities and with vivacious 

 clearness he discusses the history of the idea of 

 organic evolution, the so-called evidences which show 

 the validity of the evolution-formula, the conditions of 

 evolution (heredity and variation) and the factors in 

 the process (natural and sexual selection), the evolu- 

 tion of plants, the history of the horse, the past and 

 future evolution of man. And we can get all this for 

 a shilling ! The author writes in an unconventional 

 chatty way, and is nothing if not up to date. He 

 seems, however, to have written in hot haste, for he 

 makes many slips. Perhaps it does not matter much 

 that he speaks of Alfred Russel Wallace as being in 

 1858 " a young surgeon," but it is hard on the whale 

 to have it said of him that his five " fingers, hand 

 and all, are buried deep in blubber, and serve him 

 no purpose whatever." Surely Dr. Saleeby's teacher, 

 Sir William Turner, to whom he gracefully refers, 

 will be rather shocked at this libel on the whale's 

 flipper. Perhaps it does not matter much that a 

 certain Matthew Hay (Patrick Matthew?) is credited 

 with having conceived the idea of natural selection 

 in the early vears of the nineteenth century, but we 

 are somewhat baffled by being twice told that while 

 the hen has three and a half fingers, the embryo 

 chick has a five-fingered hand. If we dissect the 

 embryo we shall see this, we are told. We do not 

 like Dr. Saleeby's version of the lineage of extinct 

 forms " which continuously connect the horse of to- 

 day with a five-toed ancestor," but we object still 

 more to the statement that " the adult or fully- 

 developed barnacle is far inferior to the larva, for it 



