Supplement to "Nature" April 24, J902. 



times perfectly delightful. Take, for example, the 

 analogy given to illustrate the perception of sensation 

 on p. 61 : — 



" An errand boy pulls a bell handle ''he stimulates a 

 sense organ) ; the pull is conveyed up the wire (an impulse 

 travels to the central organ) ; the bell rings (a sensation 

 is produced) ; the maid-servant hears the bell (the sen- 

 sation is perceived) ; she decides that a person has 

 pulled the bell handle (passes a scnsoryjudgmenl). Per- 

 haps she is able to infer, from the violence of the ring^, 

 that it was a telegraph boy who pulled the handle. 

 Probably she goes to the door and opens it— this is 

 iquivalent to translating sensation into action with the 

 acquiescence of consciousness." 



There is a touch of genuine humour, perhaps un- 

 consciously given, in the use of the word " probably" in 

 the concluding sentence of this fine description. 



Finally, it may be said that few will read Mr. Hill's 

 little primer, with its great wealth of popular allusions 

 and applications, without learning something new, even 

 if they be trained physiologists, although it is somewhat 

 doubtful whether the book is not a little too condensed 

 for a beginner. 



The illustrations, like the ext, are original, and are in 

 every respect worthy of it. Attention may here be drawn 

 especially to the great simplicity of the diagrams of a 

 sphygmograph on p. 20 and of the pendulum myograph 

 on p. 33. B. Moore. 



A PROTEST AGAINST VITALISM. 

 Mechanismiis und Viialisinus. By O. Biitschli. Pp. 107. 

 (Leipzig : W. Engelmann, igot.) Price \s. qd. 



THE work before us is a reprint of an address delivered 

 before the International Congress of Zoology at 

 Berlin in igoi, amplified by the addition of a preface 

 and of explanatory and supplementary notes, which ex- 

 ceed considerably in bulk the original lecture. The 

 author takes as his theme the most fundamental problem 

 of biology, namely, the relation of life and living thmgs 

 to the inorganic world. With regard to this question, 

 biologists fall, consciously or unconsciously, into two 

 camps — on the one hand the vitalists, who do not believe 

 that an ultimate explanation of the phenomena of life can 

 be given in terms of the not-living ; on the other hand, 

 the " mechanists," as they are here named, who " consider 

 it possible, even though feasible only to the most limited 

 extent at the present time, to comprehend vital forms 

 and vital phenomena on the basis of complicated physico- 

 chemical conditions " (p. 8). 



Prof Biitschli, whose researches on the structure and 

 properties of protoplasm have brought him into the closest 

 contact with the problem of the nature of living matter 

 in its simplest and most elementary form, approaches the 

 question as a partisan of the mechanistic school of 

 thought, and seeks to vindicate this position against the 

 recent revival of vitalism which has been so prominent of 

 late years, especially amongst physiologists. He com- 

 mences with a brief exposition of his philosophical stand- 

 point, and expresses himself "of the opinion that sen- 

 NO. 1695, VOL. 65] 



sations (Empfindungen) accompany the processes 

 (X'organge) of the entire world, but that consciousness, or 

 conscious sensation, on the other hand, has come about 

 through the building up of the nervous system, and con- 

 sequently of memory, which is the foundation and corner- 

 stone of the conscious object, or of the Ego" (p. 6). 

 Memory is not to be regarded as a property of the living 

 substance as such, but as possible only with a complicated 

 nervous apparatus (p. 52). The author proceeds next to 

 define the mechanistic position and especially to dis- 

 tinguish " Mechanismus" from Materialism, with which 

 it has been confounded by Bunge and other \italists. 

 "The mechanistic conception does not imply that the 

 psychical can be explained by the physical ; to it these two 

 fields appear separate, though not unconnected " (p. 8). 

 This leads to brief discussions as to what is meant by 

 "causal dependence," and as to how far it is possible to 

 speak of an " explanation '' of natural phenomena, after 

 which the author passes on to review and criticise the 

 objections raised by neo-vitalists to the possibility of 

 explaining vital phenomena from a physicochemical 

 standpoint. 



It is not possible here to follow the author into 

 the details of his arguments upon this abstruse theme, 

 for which we must refer the reader to the original. 

 Suffice it to say that the lecture makes interesting reading, 

 but by no means of a light order, since almost every 

 sentence requires to be pondered over before it can be 

 assimilated, and we imagine that the inevitable butterfly 

 element amongst the professor's audience must have found 

 it difficult to gather honey from such very solid mental 

 food. Perhaps the difference between the mechanists 

 and the vitalists is nowhere brought out better than on 

 p. 17. \ neo-vitalist, Cossmann, having asserted that 

 an artificially manufactured body, of the same materials 

 and of the same structure as a plant, would nevertheless 

 not be an organism, I')Utschli replies that "a body, 

 built up in exactly the same way, Ijoth as regards struc- 

 ture and material, as a given plant, cannot, under suitable 

 external conditions, behave otherwise than would the 

 plant in question, i.e., it would live like it." So long as 

 this ideal artificial organism has not been put together, 

 it seems a little difficult for an unbiassed critic (if there 

 be any such) to assert confidently, either with the 

 mechanist, that it would behave as a living body, or with 

 the vitalist, that it would be in the condition of a dead 

 one. Incidentally, Biitschli declares his belief that the 

 Darwinian theory of evolution, in spite of the many recent 

 attacks upon it, remains the most probable of the various 

 attempts at explanation, and "contains the possible 

 general solution of the problem," especially if combined 

 with the hypothesis of germinal variations, which alone 

 are capable of being inherited (pp. 33 and 89). In con- 

 clusion, the author claims that, in vital phenomena, "only 

 that can be comprehended which can be physico- 

 chemically explained." As regards the merits of the 

 vitalistic and mechanistic points of view, he is content to 

 d clare, " By their fruits shall ye know them ! " 



E. A. M. 



