September 5, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



339 



unique properties of carbon, hydrogen and 

 oxygen should be so favorable to the organic 

 mechanism? should fit the universe for life? 

 Are cosmic and biological evolution one? Is 

 there a teleology inherent in nature? There 

 follows a brief discussion of vitalism. The 

 views of Driesch and Bergson, which postulate 

 a physical indeterminism in the organism — i. e., 

 maintain that guiding or activating factors 

 other than physico-chemical intervene in life 

 — are rejected. There is no evidence of gaps 

 in the organic nexus. Yet the possibility of 

 a vitalistic point of view, which is neverthe- 

 less consistent with a belief in the entire ade- 

 quacy of physico-chemical analysis, is not thus 

 excluded, and the author insists that this pos- 

 sibility must be recognized. Cosmic and bio- 

 logical evolution may be one. There remains 

 as consistent and possible a teleological view, 

 not of life alone, but of the whole cosmos and 

 thus of life considered as a part or product of 

 the cosmic process. The universe may after 

 aU be biocentric. It is not to be expected that 

 scientific research will ever find any instances 

 of complete discontinuity or indeterminism in 

 nature, as the eloquent paragraph quoted from 

 Royee rightly insists; all single events are 

 rigidly determined ; but the existence and 

 characteristics of the natural process as a to- 

 tality, including life as one outcome of this 

 process, are not to be accounted for by purely 

 scientific methods of explanation. A teleolog- 

 ical and, by implication, a vitalistic interpre- 

 tation of nature thus becomes possible. The 

 philosophical questions thus raised are not, 

 however, discussed in detail. 



Such is an outline of this interesting, clearly 

 written and thoughtful book. The author's 

 style shows precision and definiteness through- 

 out, and his treatment is clear and consecu- 

 tive. The account of physico-chemical factors 

 and processes is modern and accurate.' In so 

 condensed a book it is easy to point out omis- 

 sions. More space might well have been de- 



^ On page 177 osmotic pressure is said to be pro- 

 portional to the total number of particles (mole- 

 cules pliis ions) which are present in solution, 

 instead of in unit volume of soltition, but such in- 

 advertencies are rare. 



voted to a consideration of the role of nitrogen 

 in organisms; this element is fully as impor- 

 tant as carbon, hydrogen or oxygen. The 

 chapter on organic chemistry is probably too 

 concise to be popularly intelligible. The sec- 

 tion on sugars is perhaps over-technical and 

 its concluding paragraphs are not very clearly 

 expressed. Little space is given to proteins. 

 The difficulties of popular presentation become 

 almost insuperable here, and the author seems 

 to hurry over this part of the task. 



It remains to consider critically the general 

 argument of the book. The author transfers 

 the conception of fitness from the organism to 

 the inorganic environment in order to empha- 

 size the reciprocal character of biological 

 adaptation. He then devotes almost his en- 

 tire space to showing that the environment 

 possesses characteristics favorable to life as 

 we find it. Having shown this, he omits con- 

 sidering in corresponding detail the charac- 

 teristics of the organism itself, and the gen- 

 eral nature of the inter-relations between or- 

 ganisms and environment — in other words, 

 what adaptation itself is, as a general condi- 

 tion or process ; and this method of treatment 

 gives a certain impression of incompleteness. 

 Now it is quite clear that the universe must 

 show itself, on examination, to be a fit en- 

 vironment for living beings, since they con- 

 tinue to exist in it; further, this fitness must 

 show itself maximal in the case of organisms 

 showing maximal adaptation to their sur- 

 roundings; and thus the general outcome of 

 the author's argument might have been fore- 

 seen. Granted that systems having the prop- 

 erties of living beings could not have arisen 

 had the properties of carbon, hydrogen and 

 oxygen, and of their combinations, been other 

 than they are, what does this prove? Most 

 biologists will probably consider the author's 

 central thesis as either self-evident or in- 

 herently unprovable,^ and will prefer to regard 

 this book as essentially a scientific essay on the 

 biological importance of the more general and 



' That is, this world may be the best possible 

 environment for the organisms that have come to 

 exist in it, but it might not be so for the living 

 beings of another and quite different cosmos! 



