72 
Turkey Company had begun direct trading with the 
Eastern Mediterranean, and carpets were more easily 
obtained. Some of these were copied more or less 
faithfully in England. A “ Turkey ” carpet of English 
manufacture is in the Victoria and Albert Museum 
bearing the inscription, ‘‘ Feare God and keepe his 
commandements made in the yeare 1603.” Some 
light is thrown on the manufacture of such carpets by 
a chapter in Hakluyt’s “ Voyages”: ‘“‘ Certaine 
directions . . . to M. Morgan Hubblethorne, Dier, 
sent into Persia 1579,” where we read : “ In Persia you 
shall finde carpets of coarse thrummed wool, the best 
of the world, and excellently coloured: those cities 
and towns you must repair to, and you must use means 
to learn all the order of the dying of those thrums, 
which are so dyed as neither rain, wine, nor yet 
vinegar can stain. If before you return you 
could procure a singular good workman in the art of 
Turkish carpet-making you should bring the art into 
this realm.” 
These magnificently illustrated volumes provide a 
complete key not only to the history of carpetry, but 
also to the technology and identification of carpets both 
ancient and modern. The text is lucidly and attract- 
ively written. The illustrations are largely drawn 
from the collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, 
to which have been added many of the plates from 
Neugebauer and Orandi’s “ Handbuch der orienta- 
lischen Teppichkunde” and other sources. The 
authors, printers, and publishers are to be congratu- 
lated heartily on this singularly attractive production. 
CHARLES SINGER. 


Vitalism and Anti-Vitalism. 
Grundlagen einer Biodynamik. von Prof. Dr. Johannes 
Reinke. (Abhandlungen zur theoretischen Biologie. 
Herausgegeben von Prof. Dr. Julius Schaxel, Heft 16.) 
Pp.v+160. (Berlin: Gebriider Borntraeger, 1922.) 
125. 
Handbuch der Pflanzenanatomie. 
Prof. K. Linsbauer. 1 Abteilung, 1 Teil: Cytologie. 
Band 1: Zelle und. Cytoplasma. Von Henrik 
Lundegardh. Pp. xii+193-402. (Berlin: Gebriider 
Borntraeger, 1922.) 24s. 
L’Organisation de la matiére dans ses rapports avec la 
vie: études @anatomie générale et de morphologie 
expérimentale sur le tissu conjonctif et le nerf. Par 
Prof. Jean Nageotte. Pp. vi+560+4 planches. 
(Paris: Félix Alcan, 1922.) 50 francs. 
Herausgegeben von 
HESE three books all deal with the fundamental 
question of the relation of the activities denoted 
by the term “ life ” to the constitution of the matter in 
NO. 2777, NOL. 111'| 
NATURE 
ee SE Se 

[ JANUARY 20, 1923 
which they are exhibited. When living matter is 
analysed (and necessarily killed in the process) it is 
found to consist of proteids, fats, carbohydrates together 
with certain metallic salts. What has made this 
mixture “‘alive’’? Is there, as Verworn supposed, a 
living substance par~ excellence for which the other 
materials in protoplasm constitute an environment ? 
Verworn named his hypothetical substance “‘ biogen,”’ 
and “‘ life ’”’ was supposed to consist of the characteristic 
reactions of this substance with surrounding materials ; 
reactions by which the biogen molecule was partially 
destroyed, but as the result of which a residue was left 
from which a new biogen molecule was reconstituted, 
-and so the continuity of life was maintained. If, on 
the other hand, the difficulties involved in the supposi- 
tion of a specific biogen molecule are too great to be 
overcome, life may be supposed to consist in the mutual 
reactions of a characteristic mixture of substances, and 
no single substance viewed apart from the others can 
be considered alive. In this case all depends on the 
specificity of the mixture—in a word, on the physical 
structure of the living matter. We may phrase it in 
another way if we say that life depends on the justa- 
position in a definite way of unlike substances. But how 
is this physical structure maintained? Is there a 
reduced copy of the frog in the frog’s egg? That no 
typical physical structure will explain living phenomena 
has been clearly proved by Driesch. No imaginable 
“constellation of parts ’’ would survive the changes 
described by Driesch in his account of his experiments 
and yet yield the same typical result which was given 
by the original mixture. 
Now the authors of the three books before us all 
agree in rejecting the biogen theory : the first falls back 
with some hesitation and the use of different words on 
an explanation which is closely akin to the entelechy 
of Driesch, the second ignores the difficulties raised by 
the view that protoplasm is a mixture, but Prof. 
Nageotte vehemently denounces vitalism. The only 
reason, he asserts, that we believe in such an empty 
concept is the unfortunate circumstance that we our- 
selves are alive, and our life is the “accidental ” 
result of our organisation—a phrase which “ gives 
us furiously to think.” It is not quite clear how 
on Prof. Nageotte’s view science itself can exist, 
and how an “accidental result of our organisation ”’ 
can either acquire or impart “ knowledge” of pheno- 
mena outside us. But as we shall see, Prof. Nageotte, 
while like Balaam he begins with the intention of 
cursing vitalism, is led like the prophet to bless it 
altogether—although he is not conscious of the fact. 
Prof. Reinke’s book is an attempt to make a com- 
prehensive survey of the characteristic peculiarities 
of animals and plants and so to deduce general laws 
a 
