October 6, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



429 



anything about the matter. The sociological 

 chapter is inconclusive; nothing very specific 

 seems to be built upon the ' biological founda- 

 tions,' in this case, except the doctrine — which 

 one had supposed extinct these many years — 

 that we should bring up our children by 

 'teaching them exclusively truths that are be- 

 yond dispute, such as those of mathematics, 

 geography, anatomy.' 



When, however, he sticks to his last, M. Le 

 Dantec has much that is not only significant, 

 but also closely reasoned, to say, and the book 

 can not be neglected by any who are interested 

 in the larger problems of general biology. 

 The work is characterized by an unusually 

 careful attention to the question of biological 

 method — to the determination of the nature 

 and limits of ' explanation ' in this science — 

 and should be of use in increasing, so to say, 

 the methodological self-consciousness of nat- 

 uralists. No one, doubtless, was ever more 

 resolute than M. Le Dantec to banish con- 

 fusion and equivocation from biological lan- 

 guage, to define at the outset the peculiar 

 ' biologist's fallacies ' and, above all, to avoid 

 the naturalist's besetting temptation, the use — 

 especially in dealing with such processes as 

 cell-division and maturation — of vaguely teleo- 

 logical phraseology. As the chief sinner in 

 this and other matters of method, Weismann is 

 pursued throughout the book with somewhat 

 excessive ferocity ; ' the meeting-place of all 

 the errors possible in biology,' i's one of the 

 characterizations of Weismann's system. The 

 main purpose of the book, however, is ' to de- 

 scribe the known part of the phenomena of life 

 in physico-chemical terms,' and to ' show that 

 life is no more essentially different from other 

 natural phenomena than are the properties of 

 benzine essentially different from those of 

 alcohol.' This, however, does not mean that 

 the author proposes to bring vital phenomena 

 under the already known laws of chemistry or 

 physics. He regards the power of assimila- 

 tion as the primary and only essential char- 

 acteristic of living matter; and assimilation, 

 though a chemical reaction, is, upon the au- 

 thor's own showing, an entirely unique and 

 even somewhat paradoxical chemical reaction. 



Beginning with a proposed formulation of the 

 nature of this primary process, M. Le Dantec 

 attempts to correlate with this in a connected 

 manner — and in that sense, to explain — the 

 laws of the other vital phenomena, offering, by 

 the way, many observations that are of value 

 apart from their connection with the main 

 argument. The book, which is copiously illus- 

 trated with good diagrams, makes abundant 

 use of recent biological investigations, and is 

 full of ingenious hypotheses that are illumi- 

 nating and suggestive, even where the reader 

 feels that the author has not constantly dis- 

 criminated between ' possible hypothesis ' and 

 ' only possible hypothesis.' To go into full de- 

 tails of the discussion lies neither within the 

 competency of the present reviewer nor within 

 the limits of reasonable length. 



Arthur 0. Love joy. 



SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES. 



The first article in the August number of 

 the American Geologist is a biographical 

 sketch with portrait of Professor Albert A. 

 Wright by Professor George P. Wright. Pro- 

 fessor W. O. Crosby contributes the second 

 installment of his article on the ' Genetic and 

 Structural Relations of the Igneous Rocks of 

 the Lower Neponset Valley, Massachusetts.' 

 The longest paper and the one of greatest 

 general geological interest is by Drs. J. W. 

 Beede and E. H. Sellards on the ' Stratigraphy 

 of the Eastern Outcrop of the Kansas Per- 

 mian.' The writers accept the Wreford lime- 

 stone as the base of the Kansas Permian and 

 they have traced and mapped this limestone 

 from southern Nebraska nearly across Kansas. 

 Its outcrop is shown on a map, while another 

 plate gives a characteristic view of the ' Plint 

 Hills Escarpment' in Kansas, which is com- 

 posed in part of lower Permian formations. 

 In conclusion the writers state ' that the strata 

 of the lower Permian are remarkably persist- 

 ent and uniform when the great extent of out- 

 crop is considered.' President Charles R. 

 Keyes contributes a paper on ' The Funda- 

 mental Complex beyond the Southern End of 

 the Rocky Mountains.' 



