January i6, 1902] 



NATURE 



245 



to advertisements have also their interesting features, 

 and the numerous illustrations and process plates 

 scattered here and there add an additional attraction to 

 the volume. The success of this present edition will be 

 gathered from the fact that it has already been sold right 

 out, as is stated by the Brilisli Journal of Photography. 



Encyclopedic Scientifique ties Aide-Mimoire. Le Vin- 

 Par Henri Astruc. Pp. 208. (Paris : Gauthier-Villars, 

 1901.) Price 3"o F. 

 This little treatise on wine-making is essentially ency- 

 clopedic in character, and as such calls for only a brief 

 notice. The author is evidently familiar with his subject, 

 and in the limited space at his disposal has been very 

 successful in reviewing both the scientific and economic 

 position of the French wine industry. There is nothing 

 novel in the scientific questions discussed in this book, 

 but some of the economic questions brought forward are 

 not generally recognised in this country. For instance, 

 here we have been inclined to regard wine growing in 

 France as only in process of recovery from the devasta- 

 tion wrought by phylloxera, and it comes as a surprise to 

 be told by the author that the wine-growers of his 

 country are at present suffering from the effects of over- 

 production. 



This little book will be useful to anyone who desires to 

 make a rapid survey of the present position of the French 

 wine industry. A. J. B. 



A Commercial Geography of Foreign Nations. By 

 F. C. Boon, B.A. Pp. viii -f 174. (London: Methuen 

 & Co). Price zs. 

 This book will not assist to make commercial geography 

 a scientific study. Like the geographical books of old 

 time, the volume consists largely of disconnected details 

 which no pupil ought to be asked to remember, and which 

 produce weariness of the flesh in the unfortunate 

 reader. If commercial geography means what Mr. Boon 

 makes it, then it is the duty of all who are an.xious for 

 the introduction of reasonable methods of instruction in 

 schools to condemn it at every opportunity. Here are a 

 few examples of unqualified or loose statements which 

 occur in the early pages of the book. " The greatest 

 heat for the greatest number of days is on the Equator" 

 (p. i). "As the Equator is neared [from the Tropics] 

 two days have vertical sunshine at each point within the 

 Tropics, approaching gradually to the autumn and vernal 

 equinoxes at the Equator'' (p. i). " Added to the effects 

 of the neighbouring land or water are the similar effects 

 of the winds that blow over them" (p. 2). "The Gulf 

 Stream washes the coast of Norway" (p. 1 1). But we do 

 not object so much to statements of this kind as to the 

 principle of cramming pupils with information which has 

 to be accepted without inquiry and cannot be assimilated. 

 The less we have of commercial geography of this kind 

 the more likely are we to create an interest in the 

 study of the subject. 



Mining Calculations. By T. A. O'Uonahue. Pp. viii 

 -f2il. (London: Crosby Lockwood and Son, 1901.) 

 Price 2,s. 6d. 

 The primary object of this little book is to enable 

 candidates for certificates as colliery managers to obtain 

 with a minimum of trouble a sufficient knowledge of 

 arithmetic and mensuration to pass their statutory 

 examinations. If the student will steadily work out the 

 numerous useful examples given by the author, his 

 chances of success will certainly be increased. Some of 

 the absurdly easy arithmetical questions, quoted from 

 the official examination papers, do not tend to enhance 

 one's respect for the statutory certificate ; however, this 

 is no fault of the author, who has simply written a book 

 to supply a want created by the examiners appointed 

 under the Coal Mines Regulation Act. 



NO. 1 68 I, VOL. 65] 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 

 [ T/ie Editor does not hold himself responsible for opinions ex- 

 pressed by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake 

 to return, or to co> respond with the writers of rejected 

 manuscripts intended for this or any other part of NATURE. 

 No notice is taken of anonvinous co>nmunications.'\ 



The Inheritance of Mental Characters. 



All biologists must be grateful to Prof. Karl Pearson for 

 his extremely valuable and interesting paper repotted in your 

 issue of December 5, 1901 (p. 118). Inasmuch, however, as 

 his conclusions are likely to be taken as the settled results of 

 scientific research, it may be appropriate at this time to express 

 certain doubts which naturally arise on reading the abstract. 

 A man at the age of thirty, for example, possesses certain 

 physical, intellectual and moral qualities. These must be due 

 10 more than one class of factors, and may possibly be due to 

 three: — 



(i) Heredity ; characters derived from ancestors, including 

 for present purposes the results of normal variation. 



(2) Environment. 



(3) Soul ; supposing that the man is something more than an 

 mtelligent mechanism, and considering the possibility that his 

 soul may have preexisted his advent here as an individual of 

 Homo sapiens. 



The third factor will be ridiculed by many, but if it has any 

 reality it may eventually be capable of demonstration by just 

 such methods as Prof. Pearson employs. The first and second 

 factors are universally recognised. 



Nosv it is apparent at once that the influence of the several 

 factors is not the same on all the qualities of the man. Stature 

 will depend almost wholly on the first set of factors, eye-colour 

 wholly so. On the other hand, health will certainly depend 

 largely on the second, so will shyness, intelligence, cic. 



If, therefore, it is found that stature and eye-colour exhibit 

 exactly (or almost exactly) the same degree of divergence from 

 parental or fraternal standards as do health, shyness, &c., may 

 it not be that this disproves just what it seems to prove, because 

 A does not equal B, but equals B-f x? 



It may be said that the statistics given are based on pairs of 

 brothers, whose environment must have been almost identical, 

 and hence the second factor would not affect the divergence 

 between them. But this appears a doubtful argument, because 

 (i) the treatment of successive children is very commonly not 

 the same, and the fact of being an elder child is itself influential ; 

 (2) germinal selection must be supposed to be going on from 

 the earliest moment of existence, and very slight environmental 

 factors may make great ultimate differences. 



There is another consideration, that of the stability of the 

 different qualities in the race. Characters which were highly 

 variable would not appear to be inherited to the same degree as 

 those which were very stable. This might also appear in cases 

 of atavism, where the pendulum of variability took an excep- 

 tionally long swing, going back to ancestral features of which we 

 possessed no record. Thus let the inheritance be expressed by 

 ABCDEABCDEAB,&c., instead of ABABAB, &c. In 

 the former case our data might only cover A B C D, in the latter 

 A B A B. We should say that the individuals of the latter series 

 came very ' ' true," those of the former not at all, though the result 

 in the long run might be about the same in either case. Lest it 

 be said that the former series is wholly imaginary, I will cite the 

 case of the domestic dog. The ordinary mongrel street-dogs in 

 a single town would afford material for several genera and very 

 numerous species, judging them by the physical standards we 

 employ for wild animals. Yet the domestic dog, taken as a 

 whole, has not changed very much in long periods. That is to 

 say, the extraordinary variability presented is not progressive 

 under existing conditions, and we return sooner or later to about 

 the starting point. T. D. A. CoCKERELl- 



East Las Vegas, New Mexico, U.S.A., December 20, 1901. 



I AM not unmindful of the possible influence of environment 

 in increasing the correlation of brothers. I strongly suspect that 

 home influences have a good deal to do with the rather 

 exaggerated value for ihe fraternal correlation in the category of 

 conscientiousness. But certain characters, e.g. the cephalic index 

 after three years of age, the eye-colour between twenty and thirty 



