490 
NATURE 
[SEPTEMBER 21, 1899 
in the work of Mill, Littré, Bichat and others, have really 
the grave importance or have produced the disastrous 
results which he attributes to them. Ml§ll’s use of certain 
terms, such as “abstract” and “ concrete general,” is no 
doubt open to serious objection ; but there is much like- 
lihood that his conceptions on these points did not really 
differ from those of his critic; and the same smz/atis 
mutandis may probably be said of the logical slips of 
Bichat and Haeckel. It would be unfair to accuse the 
author of pedantry, but at the same time it is not certain 
that he allows sufficiently for that faculty of the human 
mind which frequently leads it to conclusions practically 
sound by processes that are logically quite indefensible. 
The constructive part of the book is hardly so strong 
as the critical. Here, however, M. Durand does excel- 
lent service in emphasising the point, even now im- 
perfectly grasped by many systematists, that no 
classification of organisms can be really natural unless 
it proceeds on a phylogenetic basis. Where the phylo- 
geny is unknown, a natural classification is so far 
impossible. In such cases an artificial classification, 
based on characters more or less arbitrarily selected, 
may be provisionally adopted as a substitute ; and, so 
long as it is not treated as final, may answer all ordinary 
purposes without detriment to the advance of knowledge. 
From failure to recognise the practical value of such 
temporary expedients, M. Durand, as it seems to us, is 
ied to adopt an unduly pessimistic tone with regard to 
he future of biological taxinomy. For a long time to 
come zoologists and botanists will doubtless have to 
proceed by the method of successive approximation ; 
and even if the ideal result should be finally unattain able, 
enough will probably be gained to satisfy all demands 
but those of the logical purist. 
M. Durand’s able and acute commentary may be 
studied with profit by all who engage in taxinomic work 
themselves, or who wish to appreciate that of others 
The most serious charge we have to bring against him 
is that of making scientific molehills into logical and 
metaphysical mountains. ASD: 
OUR BOOK SHELF. 
Die Welt als That. Umrisse einer Weltansicht auf 
naturwissenschaftlichen Grundlage. By J. Reinke. 
Pp. iv + 483. (Berlin: Gebriider Paetel, 1899.) 
IN this work Prof. Reinke sets forth his philosophic and 
scientific creed, his conceptions of nature and the uni- 
verse, of plant, beast, man, and God. The book is 
divided into five parts. The first is entitled ‘“ Subject 
and Object of the Study of Nature,” and discusses things 
and ideas, time and space, causality, chance, intelligence, 
and other metaphysical questions. The second part, 
under the heading of “The World-Stage,” deals with the 
material universe and with the conceptions of matter, 
force and direction. The third part discusses ‘The 
Nature of Life,’ and in thirteen chapters treats of the 
<ell, irritability, reproduction and heredity, adaptations, 
the origin of life, and kindred problems. In the fourth 
part, “Darwinism,” the author, after giving an outline of the 
theory of natural selection and of the views of Nageli and 
Weismann, states his own conclusions with regard to 
this subject. The fifth part, entitled ‘“ Natural Science 
and the Conception of God,” discusses monism and 
dualism, theism, pantheism and atheism, and-the first 
chapter of Genesis. 
NO. 1560, VOL. 60] 
It is clear, from this brief summary of the contents 
of the book, that the field covered by it is a wide 
one. It must suffice here, therefore, to draw attention 
to the main results or conclusions reached by the 
author, which are in reality summed up in the last 
sentence of the book—“Im Anfang war die That”— 
“Tn the Beginning was the Deed.” The solution to each 
and all of the great mysteries of science is to be found in 
the direct creative act of an intelligent being. One such 
act and deed created the material universe. A second 
gave rise to the first living organic substance, to proto- 
plasm, where previously only the inorganic had existed. 
And a third act seems to be necessary to explain the 
origin of intelligence; “that matter thinks is certainly 
something other than that matter assimilates and 
breathes.” These alleged creative acts are compared to 
the Days of Creation of the Mosaic Cosmogony, which 
the author considers “one of the greatest intellectual 
feats of history,” combining both truth and poetry. As 
a proof of the greatness of Moses, the reader is referred 
to his statue at Rome by Michael Angelo, “since only 
one of the greatest of the mortal race of men could in- 
spire the great artist of the Renaissance to such a work.” 
Prof. Reinke does not, it will be seen, arrive at very 
strikingly original conclusions, but it is something of a 
novelty to see a scientific man at the present day putting 
forward such propositions as the last message of science. 
He is frankly a dualist and considers monism “an ex- 
ploded attempt to comprehend the world,” the outcome 
of the natural effort of thinking man “to refer all 
explanations of things to the simplest possible principles.” 
It is not, however, necessary to seek for unity ; “the limit 
to be attained may just as well be duality, trinity, or a 
higher multiplicity.” Dualism is “the ripe fruit of the 
studies set forth in this book.” “In nature intelligent 
forces are to be distinguished as dominant from energetic 
forces as subservient ; in organisms both are inseparably 
combined.” Those who may wish for further information 
as to the processes of reasoning by which the author 
arrives at these conclusions must be referred to the 
work itself. 
La Liguéfaction aes Gaz: Méthodes nouvelles—A pplic- 
ations. Par J. Cauro, Docteur és Sciences. Pp. 83 
(Paris : Gauthier-Villars, 1899.) 
Dr. CAURO’s book is good enough to make one wish it 
were better. Its chief faults are negative, and may be 
summed up in the words excessive concentration. When 
it is stated that within the limits of eighty pages the 
author gives an analysis of the theory of refrigeration 
and the changes of physical state involved, a description 
of the methods and apparatus of scientific investigators 
and of the machines employed in industrial work, a 
historical 7éswmé of the progress of this branch of know- 
ledge, and a review of the actual and possible applic- 
ations of cold, it will be easily imagined that most of the 
work must be too sketchy to be of real use to any one. 
If refrigeration were recognised as a special subject in 
the examinations for some degree, Dr. Cauro’s work is 
sufficiently accurate and up to date to make it a very 
good book for getting up the subject, though even from 
this point of view excessive brevity has led to some 
errors, as when the apparatus figured on p. 24 is described 
as a modification of that on p. 23, whereas it depends on 
a radically different process for attaining the same end. 
For popular reading, both the descriptive and the his- 
torical parts are too brief to be interesting, and are not 
even intelligible without more knowledge than such read- 
ing implies. Practical men of science, and practical 
makers of industrial machines, would have found the 
book very useful in reminding and suggesting, if every 
statement and description had been accompanied by full 
references to the original papers and other sources of 
information, so that those who are interested in any 
