Febeuaey 26, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



325 



Von TJexkiill sketches and advocates a vital- 

 istic " Weltanscliauung " in eighteen popu- 

 larized essays, collected for convenience into 

 four larger groups, the whole, sponsored by 

 Felix Gross, and dedicated to Stewart Hous- 

 ton Chamberlain. " Die Neuen Probleme " is 

 introductory ; " Der Neue Standpunkt " in- 

 cludes discussions of the invisible in nature, 

 the " Merkwelt," and the problem of the ani- 

 mal mind; "Das Neue Weltbild" reproduces 

 the tropical aquarium in a series of splendid 

 word-pictures, and contains two essays de- 

 voted to the nature of life and five to the con- 

 struction of a biological " Weltbild " ; and 

 finally, under the heading " Spezielle Fragen " 

 we find ideas on morphogenesis, Mendelism, 

 the origin of space, and a discussion of Paw- 

 low's work in which for the first time in the 

 reviewer's experience trypsin is met with play* 

 ing the role of the " Hauptsprengstoff fiir die 

 schwer verdaulichen Fette " ! (p. 298) . 



Inasmuch as the arguments on which von 

 TJexkiill bases his vitalistic teachings have been 

 discussed in an earlier review^ and the pres- 

 ent work contains nothing new in this respect, 

 we may pass these over without further ado. 

 There are three matters, however, which seem 

 to deserve fuller mention; the first has to do 

 with the general purposes of the book, the sec- 

 ond, with the temperamental backgrounds of 

 vitalism, whereas thirdly, we must consider a 

 method proposed for application in the field 

 of animal behavior. 



To begin with, then, von TJexkiill does not 

 aim his guns primarily at the body of trained 

 unbelievers, but, profiting by the experience of 

 the Darwinian period of open debate, attempts 

 to recapture for vitalism the public opinion 

 taken in the earlier period by mechanistic 

 assault. Such victories are theoretically quite 

 beside the mark, but no one can look into the 

 history of things without forming the impres- 

 sion that public opinion played an important 

 part in the advance of mechanistic doctrine. 



For the execution of this turning move- 

 ment von TJexkiill appears well equipped. 



1 ' ' Umwelt imd Innenwelt der Tiere, ' ' Science, 

 N. S., Vol. XXXI., pp. 303-305. 



He is afire with enthusiasm, gifted with a 

 pretty wit, and is master of a literary technic 

 the like of which has not been seen in biolog- 

 ical circles since the days of the great Dar- 

 winian apologists. Furthermore, tempera- 

 mental qualifications of another sort do spe- 

 cial service in the hands of our reformer, and 

 this brings us to our second point. 



As some m,en under the strains of life are 

 driven to church, so others, impressed with 

 the difficulties of biology, take to vitalism. 

 The impelling embarrassments are partly ob- 

 jective and well known to all; others, how- 

 ever, are individual, and of these von TJexkiiU 

 carries a heavy load. One who asserts, " Die 

 Amoben bleiben zeitlebens ein strukturloses 

 Protoplasmahaufchen " (p. 210) and who 

 claims, " In ganz f riihen Stadien . . . besitzt 

 der Keim keine Struktur " (p. 270), must be 

 constituted blind to some of the best things 

 in modern research. 



In addition to these and numerous other 

 specific subjective results, our author also sees 

 in the lay mind many dire effects of current 

 teachings. The world instructed by mechan- 

 ical philosophers has lost the joy of life — " der 

 Sternenhimmel ist den meisten Menschen zu 

 einer greulichen verworrenen Eechenmaschine 

 geworden, die ihnen einf ach ekelhaft ist " 

 (p. 259) ; men spend their days in senseless 

 enumeration; believe that all the invisibles in 

 nature are gases; accept a chemical morality 

 but not its mirrored image ; and, by the grad- 

 ual working inward of their algebraized sym- 

 bolism, are ailing and dying at the heart. 



How much of this tragedy is true to life 

 and how much a romantic adventure, is in the 

 light of recent events not so easy to determine. 

 It is hard, however, to consider all this a nec- 

 essary consequence of mechanism, since Berk- 

 eley implied long ago that thoroughgoing 

 mechanism and idealism may dwell at peace 

 in the same mind. We are disposed to re- 

 gard such lignifications of the heart and in- 

 tellect, supposing them for the moment to have 

 some objective reality, not as the inevitable 

 results of a mechanism free from exaggera- 

 tion, pretension and carelessness, but rather 

 as the products of temperamental reactions to 



