428 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXII. No. 562. 



third; Yale leads in Asia, with Columbia 

 and Harvard following in the order named ; 

 Columbia leads in Africa and Pennsylvania 

 in Australasia. Of the European countries 

 Great Britain furnishes the largest delega- 

 tion, while the largest number of Asiatic 

 students hail from Japan. 



Much has been said and written lately 

 about the decrease in the number of west- 

 ern students in attendance at eastern insti- 

 tutions, but the accompanying figures show 

 that all of the eastern universities enumer- 

 ated still have a considerable following in 

 the west and south. It is a following that 

 is, in most eases, actually increasing each 

 year, although, of course, not at the same 

 rapid rate at which most of the western 

 universities are growing in number of stu- 

 dents. The accuracy of the figures is some- 

 what marred by the fact that a tendency 

 exists on the part of students who are not 

 residents of the place in which their uni- 

 versity is located, to register this place as 

 their permanent residence. This tendency 

 is encountered especially at institutions lo- 

 cated in large cities, but the general results 

 are not affected thereby. 



The table illustrates in striking manner 

 the truly national character of the leading 

 eastern universities and of several of the 

 western institutions, and it is to be hoped 

 that they will retain this characteristic in 

 the coming years, since it is undeniably 

 an important factor in the ever spreading 

 unification of the various sections of the 

 country. Rudolf Tombo, Jr. 



Columbia University. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 

 Traits de Biologie. Par Pelix Le Dantec, 

 charge du cours d'Embryologie generale a la 

 Sorbonne. Paris, Alcan. 1903. Pp. 553. 

 This book, which is the condensation and 

 completion of the numerous studies in biolog- 

 ical theory (and in several other subjects) that 

 have come from the productive pen of M. Le 

 Dantec during the past ten years, is one of the 



most ambitious and elaborate of the recent at- 

 tempts to synthetize the general results of 

 biological research. As such, it will be of 

 interest to both the philosopher and the natur- 

 alist. M. Le Dantec covers the whole ground 

 and something more, adding a lengthy appen- 

 dix in which the ' biological foundations ' of 

 psychology and sociology are set forth. The 

 psychological chapter is chiefly remarkable for 

 the author's entire innocence of any suspicion 

 that mental phenomena have any peculiarities 

 or complexities of their own. Thus, conscious- 

 ness is once for all disposed of by this defini- 

 tion : ' Consciousness is the property which our 

 body has of being informed at each moment of 

 its structure at that moment ' (la propriete 

 d'etre au courani de sa structure actuelle) j the 

 obvious objection that this definition takes no 

 account of the facts that we know very little 

 of our structure and that consciousness chiefly 

 is representative of ' objects,' is summarily 

 met, en passant^ by observing that ' this prop- 

 erty suffices to bring it about that we are 

 secondarily aware of what goes on about us, 

 as a result of the effect upon our structure of 

 those external events that make an impression 

 upon our sense-organs.' Here all that requires 

 explanation, and correlation with physiological 

 phenomena, is cheerfully taken for granted at 

 the start. This ' property ' which is conscious- 

 ness, moreover, is not confined to our bodies, 

 but — though never aught but an epiphenome- 

 non, functionless in evolution — extends down 

 to the simplest material structure; the argu- 

 ment to which the grounds for the mind-stuff 

 theory reduce themselves, for M. Le Dantec, 

 may be commended to the logician as a classic 

 example of the fallacy of division : " Since our 

 consciousness is so intimately connected with 

 our structure, and since we are formed of 

 chemical substances — carbon, hydrogen, etc. — 

 we ought to conclude that these chemical sub- 

 stances contain in themselves the elements of 

 our consciousness, and that, just as our body 

 is built up of atoms, our consciousness is built 

 up out of the elements of consciousness con- 

 nected with each atom." It is really depress- 

 ing to find men learned in one science still 

 reasoning like babes and sucklings in another 

 — and convinced, withal, that they alone know 



