NOVEMRER 2 1, I907J 



NA TURE 



51 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF A BIOLOGIST. 



klcnwnts de Philosophic hiologique. By Felix le 



Dantec. Pp. iii + 297. (Paris: F. Mean, 1907.) 



PROGRESS in l<no\vledge takes place by the dis- 

 covery of facts, and by drawing- inferences from 

 the facts discovered. It is commonly supposed that 

 the facts existed before we discovered them ; and this 

 hvpothesis stands the test of practical utility. But it 

 is not supposed, except by the most careless thinkers, 

 that the inferences which we draw from the facts — 

 our laws and principles — are anything more than con- 

 ceptual summaries of the facts and sequences of 

 facts within our ken. (We use the word fact, not 

 because in current usage it means that about which 

 there can be no doubt, but because it includes a wider 

 range of phenomena than the word "thing." The 

 fact that 25 per cent, of the peas, produced by breed- 

 ing from hybrids resulting from the union of a yellow 

 and a green pea, are green can hardly be described 

 as a " thing.") Our inferences may be right or they 

 mav be wrong, but they did not exist before we made 

 them. Whether we can draw any sharp distinction 

 between fact and inference ; or, to put it in terms of 

 space, whether we can draw a line of demarcation 

 and sav where fact ends and where inference begins, 

 is a question which concerns the modern biologist 

 perhaps more vitally than any other ; yet it is one 

 which very few have definitely formulated, much less 

 attempted to answer. The cause of the almost uni- 

 versal failure to provide a satisfactory answer is a 

 habit of the mind, encouraged by text-books of logic, 

 which drives it to classify things, often dichotomously, 

 into two mutually exclusive categories. Music affords 

 an example. Some folk hold that the music of certain 

 authors is good, whilst that of others is bad. Others, 

 however, say that taste is a purely relative matter, 

 and that no one has a right to say that the music of 

 a given author is good, or bad, as the case may be. 



The real truth is that whilst at one pole there are 

 classes of music which are unquestionably good, that 

 at the other there are types which are equally unques- 

 tionably bad ; between the two there is a series of 

 intermediate kinds about which it is debatable 

 whether they are good or bad. 



It is the same with fact and inference. .\t one pole 

 there are undoubtedly things which can be classed as 

 facts ; at the other, things which cannot be claimed 

 to be more than inference. But between the two 

 tlicre is a whole range of things which some regard 

 as facts, whilst others regard them not only as infer- 

 ences, but as unwarrantable ones. Biologists are far 

 too much occupied with discovering facts and with 

 drawing inferences to stop to consider the relation 

 between these two processes. It is therefore with 

 particular pleasure that we note the appearance of 

 Prof, le Dantec's book, " Elements de Philosophic 

 biologique," at the present moment. 



The book is divided into two main divisions, of 

 which the first embraces the methods and the second 

 the facts — an arrangement which, at first sight, ap- 

 pears natural, but which, on closer inspection, in our 

 NO. 1986, VOL. 77] 



opinion loses this feature. It seems, at first glance, 

 natural that we should first describe the method of 

 quarrying slate, and then dilate on the properties of 

 the material brought to the surface by the machinery 

 we have described. But in our opinion a truer pic- 

 ture of nature is conveyed by displaying the profusion 

 and chaos of her phenomena first, and then tenta- 

 tively enunciating the general conclusions we have 

 ventured to draw from them afterwards. When we 

 look closer at that part of Prof, le Dantec's book which 

 deals with method, the temporary illusion of natural- 

 ness of arrangement completely vanishes ; for an 

 array of possibly true but extremely abstruse general- 

 isations meets our eyes. The first chapter deals with 

 the conceptions of "unity" and "diversity," which 

 are surely not part of the equipment bv means of 

 which facts are brought to light, but some of the 

 fruits which their discovery has borne. 



But we do not wish to convey the impression that 

 in our opinion the book is not a valuable one. ,It 

 contains some much needed caution on the dangers 

 of an unconscious anthropomorphism in the inter- 

 pretation of nature, and on the dangers of, what is 

 merely a result of that fallacy, a too premature at- 

 tempt to analyse phenomena. But perhaps' what 

 makes the book more valuable than anything else is 

 Prof, le Dantec's familiarity with the facts with which 

 the science of pathology deals, a range of phenomena 

 which more directly concerns, but is perhaps less 

 heeded by, the student of evolution than any other. 



THE HAMBURG EXPEDITION TO SOUTH- 

 WESTERN AUSTRALIA. 

 Die Fauna Si'idwest-AustraUens. Ergehnisse der 

 Hamburger sildwest-australiscben Forschungsreisc, 

 1905. Edited by Prof. W. Michaelsen and Dr. R. 

 Hartmeyer. Vol. i., part i. Reisebericht bv Prof. 

 W. Michaelsen and Dr. R. Hartmeyer. Pp. viii + 

 116; illustrated. (Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1907.) 

 Price 4 marks. 



THE zoological collections of the German South 

 Polar Expedition to South Georgia in 18S2-83 

 are preserved in che Natural History MusevuTi at Ham- 

 burg, the staff of which therefrom acquired a special 

 interest in the subantarctic fauna. On the renewal of 

 .Antarctic research, the Hamburg' zoologists decided 

 they could contribute most usefully to that work by con- 

 tinuing the investigation of the adjacent regions. The 

 marine subantarctic fauna is most accessible on the 

 western coasts of the three great southern continents, 

 where its range is extended northward by cold ocean 

 currents. The Hamburg Museum accordingly ar- 

 ranged zoological expeditions to each of these three 

 areas. The first went to South America, and worked 

 in the Straits of Magellan and along the western 

 coasts of Chilian Patagonia; its collections have been 

 described in a series of monographs issued from 1896 

 to 1907. The second expedition was led by Dr. 

 Schultze to the coasts of south-western Africa, and 

 the series was completed by the visit of Prof. Michael- 

 sen and Dr. Har;mever to Wcstralia from June to 

 October, 1905. Tlie\' tin re made marine collections 



