NATURE 



533 



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 190b. 



SOME RECENT WORKS ON PHILOSOPHY. 

 (i) Herbert Spencer. By Prof. J. Arthur Thomson. 



Engli.sh Men of Science Series. Pp. ix+284. 



(London : J. M. Dent and Co., 1906.) Price 2S. 6d. 



net. 



(2) Reconnoitres in Reason and the Table-hook. By 

 Norman AUiston. Pp. 280. (London : Kegan 

 Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., Ltd., 1906.) Price 

 S-?. net. 



(3) Einc Untersuchung iiber Raum, Zeit und Bcgriffe 

 vum Standpiinkt des Positivismus. By Ebcrhnrd 

 Zschimmer. Pp. 54. (Leipzig : Wilhelm Engcl- 

 mann, 1906.) Price 15. 6d. net. 



(4) Beitrage zur Einfiihrung in die Geschichte dcr 

 Philosophie. By Rudolf Eucken. Pp. iv+ 195. 

 (Leipzig : Verlag der Durr'schen Buchhandlung, 

 1906.) Price 3.60 marks. 



(5) Apolloniiis of Tyana, and other Essays. By 

 Thomas Whittaker. Pp. 211. (London: Swan 

 Sonnenschein and Co., Ltd., 1906.) Price 35. 6d. 

 net. 



(6) Das Gefilge der Welt, Versiich einer kritischcn 

 Philosophic. By Hermann Graf Keyserling. Pp. 

 viii + 382. (Munich: F. Bruckmann .A.-O., 1906.) 

 Price s marks. 



(7) The Sub-conscious. By Joseph Jastrow. Pp. 

 ix4-S49. (London : Archibald Constable and Co., 

 Ltd., igo6.) Price 10s. net. 



(i) ""WEI this much is conceded by most," writes 

 Jl the author, " that Herbert Spencer was an 

 unusually keen intellectual combatant, who took the 

 evolution-formula into his strong hands as a master- 

 key, and tried (teaching others to try better) to open 

 therewith all the locked doors of the universe — all 

 the immediate, though none of the ultimate, riddles, 

 physical and biological, psychological and ethical, 

 social and religious." 



It is from that standpoint that his work is here 

 viewed, and the subject could not have fallen into 

 better hands than those of Prof. Thomson, who writes 

 clearly, argues cogently, and never fails to leave his 

 reader interested and informed. 



A fourth of this volume deals with Spencer's life 

 and characteristics ; the rest discusses and criticises 

 his chief contributions to several scientific and philo- 

 sophic problems. Prof. Thomson notes, of course, 

 his want of indebtedness to previous writers, e.g. the 

 fact that he read nothing of Locke and Mill, and that 

 when he borrowed the term " social statics " from 

 Comte he knew no more of the great positivist than 

 that he was a French philosophical writer; he notes, 

 on the other hand, the great influence exerted on 

 Spencer by von Baer's formula " expressing the course 

 of development through which every plant and animal 

 passes — the change from homogeneity to hetero- 

 geneity." The main criticisms passed on Spencer in 

 the course of the work are these : — (a) In accepting 

 the von Baer formula, Spencer thought of the germ- 

 cell and other lowly structures much too simply ; for 

 NO. 1926, VOL. 74] 



the germ-cell is far from being homogeneous, and 

 as for the spermatozoon, students of physics " tell us 

 that the picture of a Great Eastern filled with frame- 

 work as intricate as that of the daintiest watches 

 does not exaggerate the possibilities of molecular 

 comple.xity in a spermatozoon, whose actual size is 

 usually very much less than the smallest dot on the 

 watch's face." (6) Spencer does not prove his case 

 that sperm-cells and germ-cells do not possess powers 

 fundamentally unlike those of other cells — at any 

 rate, they may be -very unlike them, (c) Spencer 

 argued, " No inheritance of acquired characters, no 

 Evolution." Prof. Thomson thinks the transmission 

 of acquired characters is not proven, that there is a 

 strong presumption that they are not transmitted, 

 and that the scientific position should remain one of 

 active scepticism, leading on to experiment, (d) As 

 to the general jjhilosophic position of Spencer, he 

 holds that he was not a materialist, but was at the 

 same time guilty of gross materialisms, e.g. in his 

 universal evolution-formula, which is wholly in terms 

 of matter and motion. 



(2) Mr. AUiston wishes to rouse us all from our 

 dogmatic slumber, and here submits to the play of 

 his dialectic a number of ordinary beliefs too hastily 

 accepted. Thus, for example, in his essay on con- 

 traries, with which this volume opens, he assails the 

 common practice of distinguishing contraries as posi- 

 tive and negative, and so establishing what proves 

 to be a false precedence among them. He contends 

 that any one of two contraries always refers bv impli- 

 cation to its opposite and depends on it for point. 

 With some contraries, he goes on to say, no mean 

 is possible. Aristotle is wrong in making courage 

 the middle term between rashness and timidity. 



" Rashness is really opposed to caution, and not 

 to timidity, of which courage is antonym ; and in 

 short, in any example from this source of three chosen 

 terms, it will be found that one of them is not strictly 

 in the same category as the other two, but expresses 

 differences of another kind." 



The essay on the limits of determinism elaborates 

 the thesis : " Everything that happens, happens neces- 

 sarily; but it has got to happen first," i.e. before an 

 event happens there is a real choice of possibilities, 

 and thus " before a man has come to a decision, the 

 motive or adequate cause necessitating it cannot be 

 present, or as adequate it would have already brought 

 about the event." Other essays deal with eventu- 

 ality, the perversity of the will, force, personal credit, 

 the abstract idea, and the like. Mr. AUiston is 

 always acute, ingenious, and convincing so far as he 

 goes, and one wonders only how a complete meta- 

 physic from his pen would read. 



The later part of the volume contains a number of 

 disconnected paragraphs and aphorisms, more or less 

 paradoxical, on a number of topics that seem to 

 interest Mr. .Mliston. So long as he does not take 

 himself too seriously, and so long as he remembers 

 that Mr. Che^erton is our one chartered acrobat, 

 there is no harm in his indulging the cacoethes 

 scribendi in this fashion. 



