818 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXIX. No. 751 



shark. It is, accordingly, by no means to be 

 accepted that these creatures are nearly akin 

 to Limulus, even if cases of superficial re- 

 semblance be pointed out. For the general 

 outward shape oi Limulus may be acquired 

 independently by creatures of very different 

 groups, even to a certain degree among verte- 

 brates by rays and siluroids. On the other 

 hand, it is clear that ammocoetes should be com- 

 pared at first not with a Paleozoic form of 

 dubious kinship, but with other cyclostomes, 

 especially with the hag-fishes, which Gaskell 

 rarely mentions. The fact is that after com- 

 parison with the latter forms, we are less in- 

 clined to regard the ammocoete as a primitive 

 and unmodified creature. For we find that the 

 hag-fishes have no metamorphosis, and we may, 

 therefore, more easily harbor the suspicion 

 that the exceptional sand-living life habit of 

 the larval lamprey has been responsible for 

 many of its curious features, and that these 

 have no wider phylogenetic bearings than have, 

 for example, the peculiar larvalisms developed 

 by many teleosts. But let us not go into 

 details. The momentous problem of verte- 

 brate beginnings is still " on the knees of the 

 gods." We gravely doubt whether Gaskell's 

 book will be of great value in dislodging it. 

 Bashford Dean 



Modern Thought and the Crisis in Belief. 



me Baldwin Lectures, 1909. By E. M. 



Wenlet. New York, Macmillan. 1909. 



Pp. ix -I- 364. 



This volume results from the nomination of 

 Professor Wenley by the Protestant Episcopal 

 Bishop of Michigan to give a series of lectures 

 in an endowed course " for the Establishment 

 and Defence of Christian Truth." The cir- 

 cixmstanee will, perhaps, not especially com- 

 mend the book to the interest of some readers 

 of this journal. Few ways of spending money 

 seem to some modem minds less desirable, or 

 more productive of ethically awkward situa- 

 tions, than the creation of permanent founda- 

 tions for scholarly inquiries or discussions, 

 whose results are predetermined by the terms 

 of the endowment supporting them; this is 

 true whether the predetermined result be the 

 truth of Christianity or the truth of socialism. 



With old foundations of this sort we must do 

 the best we can; but it is a somewhat regret- 

 table anachronism that new ones should appear 

 in recent years, and in connection with Amer- 

 ican universities. One can hardly suppose 

 that the Christian truths which Professor 

 Wenley establishes and defends would have 

 been recognized as such by the episcopal 

 founder of the lectureship, no longer ago than 

 1885. The bosk is almost equally divided into 

 a destructive criticism of religious beliefs still 

 current, and philosophical reconstruction; but 

 one apprehends more clearly what it is 

 that is destroyed than what it is that is 

 constructed. The best, and the longest, divi- 

 sion of the book deals with a topic that does 

 not call for discussion here : the religious con- 

 sequences of historical criticism; the outcome 

 is a frank abandonment of the historical char- 

 acter and content of Christianity, and the 

 transfer of interest from a historic teacher to 

 a " metahistorical Christ." The precis* onto- 

 logical status of this entity, and its relation to 

 the historic Jesus, remain obscure to the pres- 

 ent reviewer. The other main division of the 

 book concerns the religious bearings and the 

 philosophic validity of the " natural science 

 view of the world " — the doctrine unfortu- 

 nately labeled by Ward "naturalism," by 

 which appears to be meant a mechanistic cos- 

 mology, biology and psychology taken as 

 equivalent to a complete account of the nature 

 of reality. With this. Professor Wenley vigor- 

 ously argues, religious thought must now have 

 a definite reckoning ; for while historical criti- 

 cism can destroy nothing essential to religion — 

 since nothing historical is essential to religion 

 — naturalism is the " executioner of the ideal 

 life." Since the refutation of naturalism is 

 presented as the main task, not only of this 

 book, but of the present age, one is disap- 

 pointed to find Professor Wenley devoting 

 expressly to it only some forty pages — one 

 ninth of his space. It should be said, however, 

 that the author regards the task as one for the 

 most part already accomplished, by Ward's 

 " Naturalism and Agnosticism," which he here, 

 so to say, reenacts. His own argT.iment rests 

 chiefly upon two points: (1) Every science 

 begins by deliberately abstracting certain as- 



