






_ in number, namely, (1) All life begins from pre-existing 
Ae ; (2) There is a tendency to the restitution and 
P wialitensince of typical form in spite of its continual 
destruction by catabolism ; (3) Psychic phenomena are 
only manifested in connexion with living material. 
But, according to Reinke, it is by no means allowable 
to attribute a “psyche” to all forms of living matter ; 
it is a contradiction in words to imagine a “ psyche ” 
_ where there is no evidence of sensation ; and so he is 
~ unable to attribute feeling to plants. Since, however, 
the protoplasm of plants obeys the same laws as that 
_ of animals, and its activities are not explicable on any 
conceivable theory of physical structure, he invents the 
word “diaphysical” to denote the basis of these 
activities. (It is a pity that he seems to be unacquainted 
with the work of Sir Bahadur Bose.) “The peculiar 
combination of ‘elementary mechanisms’ in the 
organism constitutes its being and is of diaphysical 
nature.” He pours scorn, which we think is deserved, 
on “ materialistic vitalism.” By this phrase is meant 
_ the attempt to escape from the impasse created by the 
impossibility of explaining life by physical structure, 
through the invention of an imaginary series of units 
many thousands of times smaller than the electron, to 
which are attributed imaginary properties so as to 
account for living phenomena. He states, “‘ By assimi- 
___ lation as by other chemical processes (cf. the formation 
of chlorophyll and enzyme) we only obtain lifeless 
% substances. The ‘ vitalising’ of these substances takes 
place only by their insertion in the framework of 
protoplasm ”—and this essentially vital step he terms 
-*epiplasty.” 
As might be expected, Prof. Reinke encounters the 
- Mendelian “ gene ” and in our opinion takes it far too 
seriously. A gene he considers to be a vital unit 
_ “which controls energy, material, and pattern ; out of 
which definite form develops.” It is becoming every 
day clearer that a “ gene” is not a definite unit of struc- 
ture at all, but simply the measure of the amount of patho- 
logical damage which the hereditary substance has undcr- 
gone. It is a measure, in a word, of the “ imperfection 
of regulation.” The differences between two allied 
natural races are not measurable in genes but in different 
adaptations ; the overwhelming majority of Mendelian 
mutations arise under the unhealthy circumstances of 
domestication: they are nearly all recessive to the 
parent strain, from which they differ not only in special 
_ diagnostic marks but in weaker constitutions ; in the 
few cases where they are dominant to the normal form 
___ they are generally so virulently pathological that when 
crossed with their like the results are lethal. 
k It seems to us after careful perusal that all that Prof. 
Reinke states as to the peculiarity of living processes 
NO. 2777, VOL. 111] 

Yo gl 
sd 
NATURE 73 

has been said many times before. Reinke’s influence 
of “ the whole on the parts,” and his “ dominants ” 
are simply Driesch’s entelechy in other language— 
while so long ago as the early ‘eighties Tyndall stated 
that it was not the nature of the forces manifested in 
living matter but their combination which constituted 
the miracle of life. The importance of the book con- 
sists in the tardy recognition, by a leading botanist, 
of the impossibility of explaining life by physics and 
chemistry alone. 
Prof. Lundegardh’s “ Zelle und Cytoplasma ”’ is one 
of a series of text-books devoted to the elucidation of 
the anatomy of plants, and consequently it is concerned 
almost exclusively with the cytology of vegetable 
cells. 
It is beautifully illustrated, and so far as plants are 
concerned the information contained in it is well up-to- 
date ; but the author seems to be less well informed on 
the most recent advances in animal cytology. It is 
a characteristic botanical point of view to attempt to 
deny, as he does, the all-importance of the nucleus in the 
transmission of hereditary qualities. According to him 
the nucleus derives its importance only from containing 
in it some links in the chain of chemical reactions which 
make up metabolism. Nature’s critical experiment in 
the formation of the animal spermatozoon is ignored 
by him. When we find that in animals the sole con- 
tribution of the father which contains the basis of all 
his hereditarily transmissible qualities is a condensed 
nucleus, the question as to the function of the nucleus 
seems to be decisively answered. 
Lundegardh agrees with Reinke in considering pro- 
toplasm to be a mixture of various colloids of different 
chemical composition. He emphasises the enormous 
variety of chemical changes which such a constitution 
would entail, and with the perpetual change from sol 
to gel and vice versa ; he shows that the visible structure 
must be continually altering and that the granular 
theory of the constitution of protoplasm propounded 
by Altmann, the filar theory of Flemming, and the foam- 
work theory of Biitschli, may all be to a certain extent 
true under certain conditions, but that under other 
conditions there may be no visible structure at all, and 
that the living material may present the appearance of 
ahomogeneous fluid. He, like Reinke, will have nothing 
to do with a hypothetical ultramicroscopical constitu- 
tion of invisible units as an explanation of life. He 
condemns with equal severity the supposed difference 
between ‘“idioplasm” and “ somatoplasm,” and he 
sharply criticises the unthinking acceptance of what 
can be seen in preserved specimens as a true indication 
of what exists during life. It is here that his argu- 
ments would be very much reinforced by a better 
acquaintance with the results obtained by Chambers 
C:I 
