Mat 9, 1919] 



SCIENCE 



449 



for " civil aviation, experiments and researcli "' 

 will be welcome news to those who hope for 

 the scientific development of commercial fly- 

 ing. General Seely further points out that this 

 sum does not by any means represent the total 

 amount that will be spent on research bene- 

 ficial to the civilian aviator, since the results 

 of experiments carried out for military pur- 

 poses and paid for out of the Army Estimates 

 will be equally available for the improvement 

 of commercial machines. 



The government has decided that it can not 

 itself undertake commercial flying, but that it 

 will do everything in its power to give encour- 

 agement and protection, and it is already an- 

 nounced that the Postmaster-General is pre- 

 pared to give contracts to private firms which 

 are able to offer approved machines for postal 

 services. Moreover, the government will place 

 most of the military aerodromes of the coun- 

 try at the disposal of civilian pilots for a small 

 fee, and this alone should do much to encour- 

 age civilian flying. 



In the course of his speech General Seely 

 announced that an important invention in 

 wireless telephony had recently been made, by 

 means of which the wireless operator in an 

 aeroplane was able both to send and to receive 

 messages. It was possible during the war for 

 the leader of a scouting aeroplane squadron to 

 communicate with the others, but it was not 

 practicable to receive an answer. A vacuum 

 valve generator was employed to generate 

 smooth oscillations in the hanging aerial, and 

 a vacuum valve magnifier with a crystal recti- 

 fier was used as the receiver. The experimental 

 apparatus was in use in pre-war days, but it 

 required years of research to make it practical 

 and trustworthy. — Nature. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 



The Place of Description, Definition and 

 Classification in Philosophical Biology. By 

 Professor Willi.^m E. Ritter, in " The 

 Higher Usefulness of Science and other Es- 

 says" (4th essay). Richard G. Badger. 

 1918, Pp. 105-136. 

 Few of those who have sometimes harbored 



mild inward protests against the expansions 



of subjective biology implied in the organi- 

 zation and interpretation of many of the ex- 

 perimental researches of the day realize the 

 cogency of their imexpressed protests. That 

 accurate thinking regarding biological funda- 

 mentals is of first importance for the proper 

 direction and development of biology, science 

 and even of civilization itself is suggested by 

 Professor Ritter in a significant article which 

 has not received nearly the attention it 

 deserves. 



Summarily stated Professor Hitter's thesis 

 is as follows : Taxonomy has by many been 

 set aside " as marking a juvenile period in the 

 life of biology " ; this appraisal of taxonomy 

 involves a monstrous fallacy; the dominance 

 of individual scientists animated by tliis mis- 

 taken attitude toward systematic zoology and 

 botany has led to unfortunate consequences, 

 both in the development of science and in that 

 of civilization itself. 



In science it has given rise to a state of 

 affairs in which the experimental method has 

 been raised to the high place of an end in 

 itself, and has apparently been the stimulus 

 to an extreme of speculation which is per- 

 haps best e:xemplified by the theoretical con- 

 ceptions of the German Weismann. In phi- 

 losophy it has led to the doctrine of the sui)er- 

 man, best exemplified in the writings of the 

 German Nietzsche. 



On the basis of the assertion that " taxo- 

 nomic research in both zoology and botany 

 has for years, so far as it has been based on 

 moiphology exclusively, taken as one of its 

 guiding principles neglect nothing," Professor 

 Ritter goes on to suggest that we can no 

 longer properly restrict our dictiim of '" neglect 

 nothing" to morphological attributes alone, 

 " but must extend it to all attributes of organ- 

 isms whatever — morphological, physiological, 

 ecological, chemical and all the rest." He is 

 of the opinion that a comprehensive review of 

 the whole range of biological results won 

 during the last twenty -five years indicates that 

 each of the main provinces of research " con- 

 tain differentia corresponding to the systems 

 of classification previously established on the 



