472 * 
“ /Ether and Matter,” or, an extremely simple 
exposition of some of the simpler of Larmor’s 
ideas on pages 322-325 of Franklin and Mac- 
Nutt?s “General Physics.” Others besides 
Bertrand Russell have recognized the Doc- 
trinal Function. 
W. S. Frangiin 
Barry MacNurr 
SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 
The Origin and Evolution of Life, on the 
Theory of the Action, Reaction and Inter- 
action of Energy. By Henry Fairrim.p Os- 
Born. New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons. 
1918. Pp. xxxi-t+ 322. Price $3.00. 
Professor Osborn’s Hale Lectures, reprinted 
in an enlarged form in this attractive volume, 
raise anew the question: are the factors of. 
organic evolution centripetal, consisting in the 
direct “moulding” action of environmental 
agencies upon the organism? or are they centri- 
fugal, the expression of the innate formative 
and other physiological activities of the germ 
itself, operating under conditions largely in- 
dependent of the immediate environment? He 
perceives, however, that the question can not 
rightly be put as one of alternatives, but that 
factors of both kinds necessarily enter. Organ- 
ism and environment are in continual inter- 
action; what affects the one inevitably affects 
the other; there is always an interchange of 
material and energies, constituting a more or 
less stable equilibrium in a well adapted organ- 
ism. Organic evolution has had a complex 
and diversified outcome because the conditions 
are complex; adaptation, both of structure and 
activity, has developed as a distinctive feature 
of living beings because it is an essential con- 
dition of the vital equilibrium, 7. e., of sur- 
vival. The factors of evolution are thus va- 
rious and are classified by the author under 
four chief heads: (1) action of the inorganic 
environment, (2) of the organism itself, (3) 
of the germinal substance of the organism 
(“heredity chromatin”), and (4) of the living 
environment, 7. ¢., influence exerted by other 
living organisms, e. g., competitors. Each of 
these “four complexes of energy” is to be 
conceived as itself evolving, partly independ- 
SCIENCE 
[N. S. Vou, XLVIII. No. 1245 
ently, partly in relation with the others; and 
the evolution of living organisms has taken 
place under this fourfold or “tetrakinetic” 
influence. While the environment, inorganic 
and organic, controls the evolutionary process 
—permitting the survival only of those organ- 
isms which are adapted—the process itself is 
largely conditioned from within, 2. e., by the 
internal or constitutional peculiarities of the 
germinal substance, which throughout the book 
is identified with the chromatin of the germ- 
cells. Evolution is creative, 2% e., novelty 
perpetually arises, although at varying rates 
and in varying degree in the different lines of 
evolutionary descent; but the precise causes 
and conditions of its appearance remain to be 
determined; to explain the origin of new 
varieties a more complete knowledge of the 
physiology of the germinal substance is re- 
quired. Paleontological research indicates that 
variations in the germ can be referred only 
partly, if at all, to the direct action of the 
environment upon the entire organism; thus 
rapid evolution may take place during periods 
in which there is little geological evidence of 
extensive natural change, and conversely many 
forms of life remain stable through the changes 
and chances of whole geological epochs (p. 
137). Paleontology finds one evolutionary line, 
é. g., reptiles, exhibiting active diversification 
at a certain period of its history, while at a 
later periods it relapses into conservatism at 
the very time when another line, the mammals, 
develops extraordinary creative activity (p. 
231). Evolution, as observed in the paleon- 
tological succession of animal forms, often 
appears to progress in definite directions to- 
ward adaptive ends (pp. 146-240),—a fact 
which would seem to indicate a guidance by 
natural selection; but selection, while an im- 
portant condition, can not be regarded as in 
itself an active agent. Repeated instances oc- 
cur of characters, at first apparently non- 
adaptive, continuing to evolve until they be- 
come important assets in the struggle for 
existence. The author inclines to regard the 
essential agency in evolution as an apparently 
spontaneous germinal variability. directed 
along certain definite limes; this “internal 
