JUNE 15, 1899] 
larger ones, and having laid down his position, he pro- 
ceeds to show, by his own interesting treatment of the 
theme, how large and important a subject that of 
limnology is, and how much neglected it has been in 
spite of the vast amount of information scattered in detail 
through the scientific literature of Europe. 
Diatoms, Cyanophycee, Green Algze, Fungi, and larger 
Schizomycetes, Protozoa, Rotifera, Crustacea, Polyzoa, 
Sponges, and miscellaneous higher aquatic plants and 
animals are dealt with in detail, and very interesting 
particulars are given of their numbers, distribution, and 
seasonal abundance in lakes and rivers, as well as many 
_ of their biological peculiarities. 
Probably few people are aware that some of these small 
organisms contain powerfully odorous oils, and are re- 
opportunities. 
sponsible for the strong and unpleasant smell of certain 
waters, quite apart from decomposition, 
We think, in spite of the many interesting facts regard- 
ing the existence of thermophilous organisms, the biology 
of blue-green algze, &c., the author has missed some 
For instance, we find no discussion or 
even mention of that puzzling phenomenon, the “ Break- 
_ ing of the Meres,” although some of the organisms now 
known to be concerned—Anabaena, Aphanozomenon, &c. 
—are referred to. Again, it seems surprising that no 
reference occurs to the important 7d/e of such organisms 
as Phormidium in building up “ Tufa,” “ Travertin,” and 
other calcareous and siliceous substrata, particularly as 
some of the most striking examples occur in the United 
States. 
Prof. Mason’s little book proposes, if not protests, too 
much, as it is manifestly impossible for any author to 
cover the ground implied in the title in 126 small octavo 
pages of large print; and although we may give him 
credit for clear writing, an excellent selection of materials, 
and a general “up-to-date” style of presentment—includ- 
ing modern tables and charts—we cannot recommend this 
gossip about the chemical examination of water, with a 
smattering of bacteriological methods, as a serious text- 
book for students. On the other hand, we do commend 
it to the would-be writers of similar books in this country 
as indicating some of the new directions in which such 
writings should depart, and so abandon the too well-worn 
grooves in which our present bacteriologists are creeping 
onward. 
Is not “ Wolffhiiggle,” on p. 107, a misprint for Wolff- 
hhiigel? It recurs on p. 108. 
HEART AND SCIENCE. 
Kritik der Wéssenschaftlichen Erkenntniss. 
H. vy. Schoeler. Pp. viii + 677. 
mann, 1898.) 
FRIEND of Dr. v. Schoeler’s died a victim to his 
devotion to science, when too late he had reached 
the conviction that his jealous mistress was not worth 
the sacrifice he had made for her. What, then, asked 
v. Schoeler, are the data, what the results of science and 
philosophy ? How shall we free ourselves from their 
obsession, and make them servants rather than tyrants ? 
Is ethical nihilism the upshot and a pessimism subversive 
of human endeavour in all directions other than the in- 
tellectual? Has Nietzsche, after all, the right of it? 
NO. 1546, VOL. 60] 
By Dr. 
(Leipzig : W. Engel- 
NATURE 
147 
Dr. v. Schoeler answers these questions in the present 
volume at, perhaps, inordinate length, overloading his 
work with quotations and instances not always quite 
relevant to his point. He essays nothing short of a 
critique of philosophy and of the natural sciences and a 
constructive theory of life without assumptions. In this 
task his performance is necessarily very unequal in 
different sections. His chapter on the ancient philosophy, 
for instance, is a not very valuable contribution to the 
history of anticipations. Parmenides is a “Schelling of 
antiquity,” but this does not prevent Heraclitus being 
called in as a forerunner of the /dentitats-philosophie, 
and the account of Aristotelian science goes little, if at 
all, beyond what can, be learned from G. H. Lewes. On 
the other hand, where he is more at home and possesses 
a more living interest, our author’s criticisms, if rambling, 
are often to the point. It is, however, not always quite 
easy to determine what is intended as mere exegesis, 
what is the expression of v. Schoeler’s own view. 
His philosophical sympathies lie on the whole with 
Kant, interpreted not as containing Idealism of the 
Hegelian type in germ, but as frankly realistic, relativist, 
even agnostic. His master is the Kant of the anti- 
nomies, and of the unknowable Ding-an-sich, treating 
“freedom” as an ideal amid phenomenal determination. 
He also has a word of praise for the doctrine of monads, 
leans a little to Schopenhauer, and accepts the results ot 
evolutionist biology and psychology, though critical of 
the extent to which they solve ultimate problems, and 
prepared with Kant to admit the teleological judgment 
with the limited and relative range allowed it in the 
third critique. In the scientific field, his interests seem 
to be mainly what may be termed biological in the wider 
sense. 
The smallness of the results of science in general, how- 
ever frankly we may admit those results, and the little 
advance made by either philosophy or science towards 
the solution of ultimate problems, leads to a provisional 
relativism almost sceptical. But pure scepticism is ne- 
gated by the facts of life, and if we reject mechanical 
constructions as dogmatic, and shrink on our spiritual 
side from the issue of all dogmatisms and positivisms, 
and, indeed, of all -isms, in the insanity of Nietzsche, we 
need to find an escape. 
Such an escape, v. Schoeler holds, is not provided oy 
religion. It must be sought for in the idea of humanity, 
and the furtherance of its ideals in art, in the ethics of 
family life, and in work in the cause of society. That this 
earth may or will be dissolved with its phantasmagoria of 
human knowledge, human passions, human needs, human 
ideals, lies perhaps not obscurely among the teachings of 
science. But this pessimism is not subversive of effort 
and aspiration, so long as it does not despair of the 
commonwealth. There is no absolute, neither god, 
nor world, that we can know in other than a relative 
sense or with other than a relative value, for they 
have no existence other than a relative one. The 
advance of the new outlook for the beginning of the 
twentieth century consists in freeing men from an illusion 
or a madness, in a new and undogmatic positivism or 
relativism without pride of intellect, and with a soun 
hold upon purely relative ideals through the zsthetic and 
the ethical emotions. 
