764 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. 



of 1909-10; at Naples there are almost 7,000 

 students, and at Tokyo over 5,500. 



It will probably be some time before Co- 

 lumbia University — in point of student enroll- 

 ment the largest American university — or any 

 other American university attains to the dis- 

 tinction of attracting the largest student body 

 in the world to its halls; and in the meantime 

 it is well to bear in mind that, after all, great- 

 ness and not bigness is the most important 

 factor in the development of our higher insti- 

 tutions of learning, and that the Columbia 

 authorities lose no opportunity to emphasize 

 the value of quality in contradistinction to 

 quantity. Kudolf Tombo, Jr. 



Columbia Univeesitt 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 The Doctrine of Evolution: its Basis and its 

 Scope. By Heney Edward Crampton, 

 Ph.D., Professor of Zoology, Columbia 

 University. New York, Columbia Univer- 

 sity Press. 1911. 12mo, pp. ix + 311. 

 $1.50 net. 



The difficulties of presenting scientific con- 

 ceptions and results in wholly untechnical 

 language are abundantly evidenced; they are 

 appreciated by every one, most keenly by those 

 who have attempted the task. Failure to 

 achieve such a purpose seems to follow more 

 often from falling away from the strictly 

 scientific method and spirit, than from an in- 

 ability to make facts passably intelligible. 



To Professor Crampton, however, must be 

 granted a large, if not a complete, measure of 

 success in his attempt thus to set forth the 

 essentials of the evolution idea. For the lucid- 

 ity of his untechnical statements of facts 

 makes his work thoroughly intelligible, while 

 his method and the scientific spirit which per- 

 vades the work make it convincing. 



This volume consists of the Columbia Uni- 

 versity Hewitt Lectures for 1907. As such 

 they were prepared for an audience " of ma- 

 ture persons of cultivated minds, . . . quite 

 unfamiliar with the technical facts of natural 

 history." All consideration of the work must 

 obviously be made with the nature of its 

 adaptedness constantly in mind: it is in- 



tended as " a simple message to the unscien- 

 tific." 



The introductory chapter provides a setting 

 for the evolution doctrine and includes a brief 

 discussion of certain fundamental principles 

 of science in general, and in particular of 

 biology. There are the necessary descriptions 

 of the biological sciences, of the nature of the 

 organism, and of life processes, throughout 

 which the wisdom of the author is evidenced 

 by his discreet avoidance of the word " vital- 

 ism " in any of its present meanings. The 

 second and third chapters are given to setting 

 forth the evidences of evolution as afforded by 

 the structure, the development, the fossil his- 

 tory and the geographical distribution of or- 

 ganisms. Factors in the process of evolution 

 are reviewed in the fourth chapter. This con- 

 cludes what might have been termed Part I. 

 of the work, dealing with general evolution. 



In the remaining chapters the author takes 

 up various phases of human evolution for 

 especial emphasis and more detailed treat- 

 ment. Presentation of the facts regarding the 

 " physical " evolution of the human species is 

 followed by an account of the evidences for 

 the evolution of the human races. This leads 

 to an account of man's mental evolution, 

 which is discussed from the standpoints of 

 comparative psychology, both descriptive and 

 genetic, of " comparative anthropology," and 

 of the " paleontology of mind." 



It is at this corresponding point that many 

 somewhat similar accounts of evolution termi- 

 nate. Professor Crampton, however, does not 

 fail to discuss those aspects of the evolution- 

 ary doctrine which the general reader to-day 

 regards as of the most importance, and con- 

 cerning which there is the greatest need for 

 simple, sane, scientific treatment. For there 

 follow two chapters entitled " Social Evolu- 

 tion as a Biological Process " and " Evolution 

 and the Higher Human Life." Many will 

 find* these the most valuable parts of the book, 

 for here are reviewed, in simple terms, the 

 fundamental evolutionary aspects of social 

 relations, and of ethics, religion and philos- 

 ophy. 



In its general plan this work is not unlike 



