56 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. II. No. 28. 



spondence ' Dr. Geo. M. Dawson pi-esents a 

 note on ' Interglacial Climatic Conditions.' 

 This number includes the usual reviews of 

 recent geological literature, list of recent 

 publications, and personal and scientific 

 news. 



THE MONIST, JULY. 



The opening article by Professor Joseph 

 Le Conte, The Tlieory of Evolution and Social 

 Progress, reviews broadly the history of the 

 developmeiit-idea and finds that there are 

 four grades or planes of evolution — phys- 

 ical, chemical, biotic and human. To each 

 there is a limit, and the evolutionary pro- 

 cess can continue only bj^ being transferred 

 to a higher grade with new factors. The 

 first three have already reached their goals; 

 only the last, rational evolution, remains. 

 Here the significance and character of the 

 new factor — voluntary rational cooperation 

 — ^which differentiates the new grade from 

 the rest, must be considered in sociological 

 applications. Professor Le Conte empha- 

 sises the beneficent and encouraging features 

 of the Lamarckian factors, and counsels 

 strict subordination to wise empiricism in 

 all practical applications of scientific prin- 

 ciples. 



In The Present Problems of Organic Evolu- 

 tion, Professor E. D. Cope, after stating ip- 

 sissimis verbis the views of Lamarck, Dar- 

 win, "Wallace, Spencer, Haeckel, Weis- 

 mann and others, contrasts the doctrines 

 of the two opposed schools of epigenesis 

 and preformation, and sketches the main 

 features of his own theory of the origin and 

 inheritance of variations as based on in- 

 dependent studies, to be developed in full 

 in a forthcoming book. 



The Metaphysical X in Cognition, a long 

 and exhaustive article by Dr. Paul Cams, 

 examines and aims to refute the theory of 

 knowledge, now almost universally ac- 

 cepted, which rejects scientific explanation 

 as the ultimate term of cognition, and which 

 finds in science an unknowable metaphys- 



ical residuum which the human mind can 

 never hope to compass. Dr. Cams also ex- 

 amines the view of Professor Ernst Mach 

 that ultimate explanations in physics are 

 not necessariljr mechanical explanations. 



Professor A. E. Dolbear, in Materialism 

 Untenable, points out that the possibilities 

 of matter as an active agent are not j^et 

 limited. In The Unseen Universe Sir Robert 

 Stawell Ball develops in a popular but ele- 

 gant manner the truth that the objects 

 which we can see in the heavens very prob- 

 ably constitute not a millionth part of the 

 material universe. 



In The Science of Mentation, Mr. Elmer 

 Gates propounds ' some new general meth- 

 ods of psychologic research.' Mr. Gates 

 laj^s stress on the results which he has 

 reached by the artificial variation (1) of the 

 organic structures and (2) of the men- 

 tation of organisms. His color experiments 

 with dogs kept in the dark from their birth 

 and with dogs compelled to distinguish be- 

 tween colors by electric shocks consequent 

 upon certain actions, with the structural 

 results shown by cerebral dissection, are in- 

 genious. The educational inferences of this 

 article, although sweeping, are suggestive. 



Mr. E. Douglas Fawcett writes on monad- 

 ology, and Mrs. Emilia Digby in refutation 

 of the onomatopic theory of music. M. Lu- 

 cien Ari-eat's letter on the philosophical lit- 

 erature of France, with reviews of the best 

 and most recent philosophic, scientific and 

 religious works published in America, Eng- 

 land, Germany and Italy, constitute the rest 

 of the contents. 



NEW BOOKS. 



Biological Lectures delivered at the Marine Bio- 

 logical Laboratory of Woodh Holl. Boston, 

 Ginn&Co. 1S95. Pp. vii-f287. 



Analytical Chemistry. N. Menschutkin. 

 Translated by James Locke. London 

 and New York, Macmillan & Co. 1895. 

 Pp. xii+512. $4.00. 



