272 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. II. No. 35. 



olution. The survival of the fittest, in the case 

 of mau, is as much a survival of fit ideas, insti- 

 tutions, etc., as of indi\dduals. In man indi- 

 vidual plasticity is required rather than inher- 

 ited special traits. A realization of this would 

 make a book such as Mr. Kidd's Social Evolution 

 impossible. Mr. Kidd's major premise is that 

 evolution takes place exclusively through severe 

 natural selection, but, as a matter of fact, hu- 

 man progress also occurs through cooperative 

 improvement in the social environment. 



Professor Le Conte has contributed a very in- 

 teresting address to the July number of The 

 Monist in which he distinguishes social progress 

 from organic development. He, however, re- 

 gards the Lamarckian factors as essential to hu- 

 man progress, and does not, I think, adequately 

 value the progress that can be made through 

 improving the environment without regard to 

 any organic change in the individual. Indeed 

 I shall follow the advice of Mr. Le Conte in a 

 recent number (Vol. I., page 188) of this journal 

 and venture to point out what seems to me a 

 fallacy in his argument. Mr. Le Conte writes: 

 ' ' Now I cannot at all accept this view [that La- 

 marckian factors are no factors in evolution] ; I 

 will not stop to argue it, but simply point out 

 some logical consequences when applied to hu- 

 man progress ; consequences which, it seems to 

 me, are nothing less than a reductio ad absurdum 

 for the view ;" and he proceeds to describe the 

 consequences, ' ' the pitiless destruction of the 

 weak, the sick and the helpless," against which 

 ' ' we instinctively revolt. ' ' But even if these 

 practical consequences follow, one is surely not 

 justified in arguing that facts do not exist be- 

 cause we would gladly have them otherwise. 

 J. McKeen Cattell. 



SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 

 A Text-book of Zoogeography. By Fkank E. 

 Beddabd. Cambridge, 1895. (Cambridge 

 Natural Science Manuals — biological series.) 

 Zoogeography treats of the geographical dis- 

 tribution of all animals, and in 'A Text-book 

 of Zoogeography,' Mr. Beddard himself says: 

 "The science is not limited to a consideration 

 of the animals which inhabit dry land; but," he 

 immediately adds, "this volume will only deal 

 with thoae formic, touching incidentally upon 



some of the fresh water species, whose distribu- 

 tion is apparently governed by the same laws as 

 those which govern the distribution of the purely 

 terrestrial animals" (p. 4). Inasmuch as the dis- 

 tribution of marine animals is determined by 

 other factors than the distribution of terrestrial 

 and fi-esh-water forms, we have some reason to 

 complain of the too comprehensive scope of the 

 'title, but, with this caveat, we can judge the 

 work in ciuestion on its own merits as an epitome 

 of the geographical distribution of mammals and 

 birds with some references to other animals. 



The time-honored Sclaterian ' regions ' are 

 retained, although modified by their own au- 

 thor long ago (1876). The subject-matter has 

 been repeatedly discussed and need not detain 

 us here. The reasons (often traversed) which 

 have influenced Mr. Beddard are given by him 

 at length (pp. 85-87). It is not untimely, how- 

 ever, to repeat that there is an entire want of 

 congruity between the inland and marine faunal 

 realms, and it may be added that while there is 

 every gradation between marine and fresh-water 

 types, the great bulk of fresh-water fishes, at 

 least, has long been segregated completely ft'om 

 salt-water types, the Ostariophysi, including 

 the hosts of Characinids, Cj^arinids, Gymnotids, 

 Silurids and their numerous allies, having only 

 a few descendants that have reverted to the 

 .salt waters. This great assemblage, by the way, 

 furnishes an excellent illustration of the truth 

 of Mr. Beddard' s assertion that " the facts of 

 distribution are constantly liable to be misun- 

 derstood through ignorance of classification," 

 and that ' 'a knowledge of comparative anatomy 

 is absolutely essential to the student of distribu- 

 tion" (25). The several families of Ostario- 

 physi are widely separated in European works 

 on ichthyology and associated with forms with 

 which they have no affinity. Such knowledge, 

 too, would have prevented the coupling of the 

 Galaxvidie and Haplochitonidie as ' two families 

 of Salmonoid fishes ' (171), for they really have 

 no relationship to the Salmonoids, but represent 

 a group confined to the fresh waters of the 

 southern hemisphere. Another misapprehen- 

 sion as to relationships on account of superficial 

 similarity disguising anatomical differences is 

 responsible for the statement that ' ' the chief 

 feature of the island [Madagascar] is the pres- 



