NATURE 



[May 7, 1908 



winian theory is being attacked more vigorously than 

 ever; the assailants, however, belong to a very dif- 

 ferent class from Darwin's impetuous critics of the 

 earlv 'sixties. Mr. Hird takes little or no notice of 

 present-day problems, but writes as if the whole ques- 

 tion of evolution still occupied the same position as in 

 the mid-Victorian era. Within these limits he is fairly 

 interesting ; it is, however, unfortunate that he has 

 admitted to his pages several inaccuracies that might 

 with a little more care have been avoided. 

 " Oasperm," "octoderm," are ugly misprints; 

 " hermaphrodite " does not mean the same as 

 "dioecious"; it is new to us that hsematococcus 

 " like the amoeba, requires to be magnified some 

 900 times in order to be seen." Huxley can scarcely 

 be ranked as a "discoverer of evolution "; he would 

 certainly never have made such a claim for himself. 

 The illustrations in Mr. Hird's volume have mostly 

 been seen before. Many of them are good, but the 

 connection of some with the text is remote. 



(2) Prof. Kellogg's book is of a very different 

 stamp. So far from ignoring the questions that have 

 in recent years grown up around the central doctrine 

 of evolution, he has devoted an immense amount of 

 labour to collecting, arranging, and expounding the 

 views of nearly all the recent writers on evolutionary 

 subjects. His treatise thus contains a vast quantity of 

 material, in large part consisting of copious quota- 

 tions from English, French, and German authors, put 

 together somewhat promiscuously, and discussed 

 without much exercise of the critical faculty, but useful 

 to the student as a storehouse of various and conflict- 

 ing opinions. The author's own standpoint is not 

 very easily discovered. He passes in review the tenets 

 of Darwinians, Lamarckians, Mutationists, Nagelians, 

 with much appearance of giving a fair hearing to 

 all sides. But as he seldom seems to know his own 

 mind for long together, the general result is un- 

 satisfying, not to say irritating; his impartiality is the 

 impartiality of the pendulum rather than that of the 

 judge. The author rightly appreciates the construc- 

 tive weakness of anti-Darwinian arguments, but 

 greatly overestimates their destructive efficiency. He 

 allows, for example, far too much weight to frivolous 

 objections such as those raised by Wolff in his 

 " Beitrage zur Kritik der darwin'schen Lehre." 



In examining the assaults deli\rered from various 

 quarters on the Darwinian position, one cannot help 

 being struck with the fact that the efforts of objectors 

 tend much more efTectively, on the whole, to refute 

 each other than to weaken the defence. It is also 

 quite obvious that to many of these critics Darwin's 

 own writings are practically a sealed book. One 

 cannot suspect Prof. Kellogg of talking about Darwin 

 without having read him ; nevertheless he shows, like 

 other writers, a strange confusion of mind with re- 

 spect to the Darwinian view of the function of natural 

 selection in evolutionary process. Why should it be 

 considered a " weakness " of the Darwinian theory 

 of natural selection that this principle has " no influ- 

 ence whatever on the origin and control of varia- 

 tions "? Darwinism never professed to be an " all- 

 • sufficient explanation of adaptation and species-form- 



NO. 2010, VOL. 78] 



ing " apart from the existence of variation, which fact 

 it takes for granted. It is irrational to blame a theory 

 because it does not explain one of the fundamental 

 data from which it starts. 



In at least one passage of his book, the author 

 shows a distinct leaning towards the " orthogenesis " 

 advocated by the school of Eimer. Theories, he 

 thinks, of this general type " are directly in line with 

 die spirit of modern biological methods and investiga- 

 tions." On this point, opinions will differ; we should 

 be inclined to maintain the opposite. On a later page 

 he advances what he considers to be "a logical proof 

 for the introduction into phylogeny of adaptive onto- 

 genetic changes," i.e. a proof of Lamarckism, for it 

 is iiard to see any distinction between this view and 

 that of the French evolutionist. 



" When species-differences and adaptations are 

 idontic.il with differences and modifications readily 

 directly producible in the individual by vary- 

 ing environment, are we not justified," he asks, 

 " on the basis of logical deduction, to assume 

 the transmutation of ontogenetic acquirements 

 into phyletic acquirements, even though we 

 are as yet ignorant of the physicochemical or 

 vital mechanism capable of effecting the carrying 

 over ? " 



This question we should unhesitatingly answer 

 in the negative. When rhetoric of the above 

 description is dignified with the name of " proof," we 

 are not surprised to find that the author's estimate of 

 the true bearing of ascertained facts is feeble. It 

 appears to cause him some astonishment that there 

 still exist, "especially in England," thorough-going 

 Darwinians who remain unmoved by the storm of 

 criticism levelled against the theory of natural selec- 

 tion. That there are such stalwarts is undoubtedly 

 the case, and the situation as maintained by them 

 could not be better expressed thart in the words, 

 quoted without approval by Prof. Kellogg, of Sir 

 E. Ray Lankester, at York, in .\ugust, 1906 : — 



" In looking back over twenty-five years it seems 

 to me that we must say that the conclusions of 

 Darwin as to the origin of species by the survival 

 of selected races in the struggle for existence are more 

 firmly established than ever." 



F. A. D. 



Ol]R BOOK SHELF. 

 Graphics, applied to Arilhmetic, Mensuration, ana 

 Statics. By G. C. Turner. Pp. ix + 38S. (London: 

 Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1908.) Price 6s. 

 This work forms a valuable addition to the text-books 

 on an important branch of mathematics, and, coming 

 from a past student of Prof. Henrici, is especially 

 welcome. Within the limits imposed by the author, 

 the subject of graphics is very fully and ably treated. 

 The first chapter, on graphical arithmetic, gives, at 

 perhaps undue length, the geometrical constructions 

 corresponding to the ordinary arithmetical processes, 

 with the employment of scales and squared paper, and 

 is followed by a very useful chapter on the graphical 

 mensuration of plane figures. Vectors are then intro- 

 duced, with examples of displacement, velocity, and 

 acceleration vectors, and problems on mass centres — 

 altogether a very interesting section. Experimental 

 work is done in connection with concurrent forces in 



