December 5, 1912I 



NATURE 



psychologist, in his search for the links that bind 

 subject to object, and mind to nerve, and the 

 metaphysician, in his attempts to solve the 

 problems of reality, must still be either Platonist 

 or Aristotelian — a necessJiry consequence this of 

 the orthogenesis, so to say, of the human mind. 



(i) It was a happy thought of Prof. K. C. 

 Schneider to set in dialogue form the various lines 

 of inquiry and points of view available for the 

 fascinating subject of animal psychology. The 

 nature of man's mind and the foundations on 

 which it is built up are engrossing questions which 

 can best be approached b}' experimental study 

 of the lower forms of mentality. And the dis- 

 tinctive character of this dialogue is that each 

 point discussed starts from an experiment. The 

 conclusions to be drawn from such experiments 

 must vary with the personal equation. For 

 instance, in the case of the method of trial and 

 error, one is apt to forget that it is, after all, the 

 principal method of human reasoning even in its 

 highest developments. The philosopher himself, 

 if called upon to solve the problem which he sets 

 before a cat or a dog in the shape of one of 

 those labyrinthine boxes, well-named " Vexier- 

 kasten," such as Hobhouse, Thorndike, and Lloyd 

 Morgan have traditionalised — a good specimen is 

 reproduced on page 578 of the author's book — ■ 

 would proceed at once, or certainly suh finem., by 

 the method of trial and error. That is the 

 universal method of organic intelligence, which 

 behaves throughout as if enclosed in a Hampton 

 Court Maze of matter. 



The Psychologist, the Monist, the \'italist, the 

 Physiologist, the Lamarckian, and the Darwinian, 

 the "persons of the dialogue, discuss all possible 

 phenomena of perception, action and experience, 

 from the amceba to the ape. Orientation and 

 various tropisms lead up to the "mono-, bi-, and 

 tri-polar hypotheses." The dreams and games of 

 animals are well treated ; the " speech of animals " 

 is a suggestive chapter. The illustrations are 

 apt ; many are original. The book should be 

 translated into English. 



(2) Psychological problems are midway between 

 biological and metaphysical. Prof. Greil in his 

 first volume argues very thoroughly but with a 

 great deal of repetition and rhetoric, with a wealth 

 of abstract terms and with a poverty of experi- 

 mental illustrations, in favour of Haeckel's prin- 

 ciple of epigenesis. There are few more interest- 

 ing lines of thought than those presented by 

 ontogeny and phylogeny — for, whether it be that 

 the organism is continually coming into new 

 circles of environment throughout its existence, 

 or that its changes are preordained by determin- 

 NO. 2249, VOL. 90] 



ants, either or any hypothesis is at once in the 

 metaphysical and the mechanical sphere, ilow 

 to engineer even embryological developments, and 

 how to rationalise the process and the result so 

 as to satisfy the "logical principle," are as much 

 mysteries as any the Schoolmen meditated. The 

 author, professor of anatomy at Innsbruck, traces 

 very lucidly the development of theory, from the 

 old systematism, which started from anatomy, to 

 the new Entwicklungsmechanik, which ends in 

 enzymes and commences with chemical combina- 

 tions and mechanical forces. He well criticises 

 the "mosaic theory," but one wishes he could give 

 us, so to say, the perspective of an orthogenic 

 principle that would convince the mind. The 

 volume has the defect of being entirely without 

 headings to chapter or page — the author's name 

 and the title of the book surmount each column 

 of type, while the reader experiences difficulty in 

 knowing where he is. 



(3) Dr. W. Mackenzie writes in Italian a dis- 

 quisition such as is increasingly abundant to-day 

 on the principles, logical and metaphysical (in the 

 older application of the terms), which may under- 

 lie the processes of organic life. This style of 

 " philosophy of nature " is practically a modern 

 form of neo-Platonism. The "idea" is pursued, 

 with the help of analogies, chiefly suggested by 

 morphology, from the " individualised " cell to the 

 ethical and a;sthetic Absolute inherent in the 

 universe. "World harmony," the "omnipresence 

 of the moral principle," the "artistic principle," 

 and, behind them, the "logical principle," are 

 merely impressions from the die in which our 

 thought is formed. Such metaphysics, no doubt, 

 will always be written and always illustrated by 

 beautiful diagrams and coloured pictures. But 

 this author cannot tell us what the "psychical and 

 teleological energy " is ; he expounds " biological 

 unity," but gets no nearer to an explanation of 

 the dynamical capacity of living matter. " Beauty 

 arises from death," like similar pronouncements, 

 is merely superficial. It is kinematography, not 

 science, nor even metaphysics. 



A. E. Cr.-\wi.ev. 



OUR BOOKSHELF. 

 Zur Phylogenie der Priniulaceenhliite. Studien 



iiber den Gefassbiindelverlauf in Bliitenachse 



und Perianth. By Dr. Salvator Thenen. Pp. 



iv-i-131. (Jena: Gustav Fischer, igii.) Price 



8 marks. 

 The course of the vascular bundles in the perianth 

 and floral axis has been studied by the author 

 in a large number of species of the PrimulaceEe. 

 His results are described in this work, and are 



