December 28, 1905] 



NA TURE 



'95 



lutely impregnable — against the intellectual found- 

 ations of empirical science. So impregnable, in fact, 

 to the author's mind that he can afford to detail in 

 the preface, with inimitable naivete, his many dis- 

 couragements in the preparation of the work — the 

 fact, for instance, that of eight Fellows of the Royal 

 Society with whom he has communicated all have 

 declined to read and criticise advance proof-sheets. 

 Sir Oliver Lodge has even gently indicated that Mr. 

 Hiller's previous works have not impressed him; the 

 letter is printed in full as a kind of imprimatur. 



Briefly stated, Mr. Hiller's main position is that 

 causality resides solely in the human will, and not 

 at all in matter, atoms, ions, ether, electricity, or 

 any of the other entities with which modern science 

 deals. What reality ordinary objects possess is not 

 quite clear, but apparently the action which we 

 ordinarily suppose them to effect really belongs to the 

 human being using them. Thus " a knife is a fetish 

 facilitating cutting," i.e. cutting could quite well be 

 done by the unequipped human will, but human 

 nature being weak finds it useful for ordinary pur- 

 poses to rely on the ( jod-determined illusion of knives 

 and scissors. Food becomes unnecessary, or can 

 readily be replaced by poisons. In fact, there is no 

 poison or disease ,u all but thinking, or rather 

 willing, makes it so, i.e. if the individual will, acting 

 on its own initiative, has not endowed an object with 

 such and such attributes, then the consensus of other 

 human wills, acting through hypnotic suggestion, so 

 endows it. In this way, we presume, Mr. Hiller 

 would account for the occasional death of infants by 

 accidental poisoning. Doctors not only cure diseases, 

 but also create and propagate them. 



Considerations of space forbid a statement of Mr. 

 Hiller's doctrine of perception, with its singularly- 

 elegant terminology- -top storey of mind, mnemonic 

 storey, and the like. But a word of criticism must 

 be added, even if it is foolhardy to rush in where 

 eight Fellows of the Royal Society have declined to 

 tread. So far as we can understand our author, he 

 seems in too great a hurry to explain abnormal ex- 

 periences. He revels in things that make our flesh 

 creep, people whose staple diet is strychnine, "Katie 

 King " apparitions, ghosts thai have pulses and 

 heart-beats. Now of course we should all like to 

 build up absolutely exhaustive systi ms, but at present 

 well-sifted evidence of the extraordinary is so difficult 

 to procure, and the abnormal is so often exploited bv 

 charlatanism for private ends, that science, which is 

 Ion;.; and patient, will rather wait a little and con- 

 centrate itself upon the normal. Again, there is 

 obviously a difference in the glory of fetishes; there 

 is one fetish which facilitates cutting, and another 

 which facilitates Marconigrams. Will Mr. Hiller 

 seriously maintain that a consensus oi even all exist- 

 ing human wills could interchange these at its 

 pleasure? Why had we to wait until the twentieth 

 century for radio-activity? Could a sufficiently strong 

 will in the nineteenth have produced the same effects 

 by means of shoe-blacking? 



We gather from the preface that this attempt to 

 prove the rest of the world insane is merely a pro- 

 NO. I88~, VOL. 73] 



visional instalment of a greater work, lo be entitled 

 "Sic Transit Scientia " ! So important an effort to 

 overthrow the walls of the empirical Jericho must be 

 carefully timed; we can only suggest as the most 

 fitting date of publication the eve of the Greek 

 Kalends. 



IONS AND ORGANISMS. 

 Studies 111 General Physiology. By Jacques Loeb. 

 2 vols. Pp. xxix + ySj. (London: T. Fisher Unwin. 

 1905.) Price 31s. 6d. net. 



THE two volumes of papers collected under this 

 title form one of the most interesting and 

 suggestive works that have been published on the 

 subject. The bold idea, that by means of alterations 

 in the composition of the solutions that bathe the 

 tissues it is possible profoundly to affect not onlv 

 metabolism and growth, but also such processes as 

 fertilisation, has led to a series of experiments here 

 recorded that are well worthy of careful studv. 



The material with which Prof. Loeb and his pupils 

 have worked has been in the main organisms of such 

 a size thai the whole animal could be acted on by 

 changes in the salts dissolved in the water in which 

 the animal lived. Most of the experiments were made 

 with either the embryos or eggs of marine animals 

 belonging to the groups of Annelida?, Echinoderms 

 and their allies; some were on fish embryos, some on 

 hydroids, and the earlier experiments, which seem to 

 have furnished the author with the leading idea for 

 these researches, frog's muscle. This idea, shortly 

 summarised, is that the changes in the composition 

 of the solutions are effective on account of the pro- 

 perties of the various ions added or subtracted, and 

 that by varying these one can control the various 

 biological processes. The control is supposed to be 

 direct, and ions are even termed " toxic " or " anti- 

 toxic " according to their suggested action on any 

 process — for example, Sodium ions are "toxic," 

 because they prevent the development of fundulus ova, 

 Calcium ions are " antitoxic " because they neutralise 

 this action. 



The experiments which have perhaps attracted most 

 attention are those on artificial fertilisation. Addition 

 of MCI to the water in which the eggs of starfish 

 (Asterias) ware suspended caused them to develop 

 parthenogenetically ; similarly Ca was efficacious for 

 the eggs of Amphitrite, KC'l for Chaetopterus, and 

 either KC1, NaCl, or even evaporation of sea 

 water for the eggs of Arbacia, an Echinoderm. As 

 to the accuracy of the observed phenomena, most of 

 Prof. Loeb's readers will accept the evidence here- 

 adduced ; whether the results bear the importance 

 attached to them is a more open question. The 

 author himself points out that these eggs are natur- 

 ally on the brink of parthenogenetic development; in 

 fact, if left to themselves they usually begin to 

 segment spontaneously, and the effect of the addition 

 of the various ions is only to hasten a naturally 

 occurring process. It perhaps asks too much, but 

 one regrets that the experimental difficulties so far 

 seem to have prevented any of the parthenogenetic 

 animals from attaining adult life. 



