October 3, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



483 



Likewise, it is difficult to find grounds for 

 agreeing with the author when he states (page 

 199) that transpiration is a process " for 

 which there is no equivalent in animals." 

 Excepting when the higher animal is covered 

 with water there is always more or less cu- 

 ticular transpiration from its skin, just as 

 there is in plants, and the wet membranes of 

 the lungs and air passages are always trans- 

 piring large amounts of water into the inter- 

 nal atmosphere, just as happens in plant 

 foliage and the like. Transpiration is a phe- 

 nomenon common to all living things which 

 are exposed to air, though its indirect effects 

 are of course different in different forms. 



A method of exposition to which many 

 botanists will probably object, but which will 

 no doubt receive the hearty approval of most 

 physiologists, is the presentation of the en- 

 tire subject of sexual reproduction without 

 reference to the alternation of generations. 

 From the dynamic point of view, it is surely 

 desirable for an elementary treatise thus to 

 omit the complicated story of sporophyte and 

 gametophyte, megaspores and microspores. 

 The reviewer looks upon this as a real stroke 

 •of genius, considering the dominance of these 

 things in present-day botany. 



Last, but not by any means least, among 

 the points selected for mention here, is what 

 may be termed the philosophy of the book be- 

 fore us. The whole presentation is frankly 

 and insistently permeated with the peculiar 

 confusion, so common in biological reasoning, 

 of causes with effects; the account is written 

 from the teleological standpoint. The author 

 adds a new deity to the growing biological 

 pantheon, thus developing " a perfectly nat- 

 ural vitalism based on the superior interpre- 

 tative power of a hypothesis assuming the ex- 

 istence in nature of an X-entity, additional to 

 matter and energy but of the same cosmic 

 rank as they, and manifesting itself to our 

 senses only through its power to keep a certain 

 quantity of matter and energy in the con- 

 tinuous orderly ferment we call life " (page 

 viii). To the purposefulness of this unknown 

 Something are attributed the determining con- 

 ditions that bring about the more complex 



phenomena of living things; wherever the 

 physical antecedents or determining condi- 

 tions of a phenomenon are not knovim (and 

 they are mostly unknown in physiology), the 

 hypothesis of the X-entity supplies a word 

 with which to cloak our ignorance — as Pro- 

 fessor Barnes used to say — and in this seems 

 to lie the " superior interpretive power " of 

 such hypotheses. 



But this is not the place to add to the al- 

 ready great and bemuddled mass of academic 

 argument concerning this present-day sur- 

 vival of the doctrine of special creation. 

 Space may be taken to note further only three 

 interesting aspects of the general philosophical 

 attitude of " The Living Plant." Pirst, non- 

 teleologists will welcome the frankness and 

 clearness with which the position of the au- 

 thor has been stated. While many teleolo- 

 gists explain the prevalent use of purposeful 

 implications merely as verbal short-cuts, dis- 

 avowing all belief in what the words actually 

 state, and while such vague mental positions 

 seem to give some weight to the accusation 

 that it is but a " man of straw " against which 

 the scientific monist directs his javelin, our 

 present author makes it perfectly and unmis- 

 takably clear that he does hold to purpose as 

 a logical cause of phenomena in matter and 

 energy. Such clear statements must do much 

 to clarify the atmosphere of this seemingly 

 everlasting discussion. 



The second interesting philosophical fea- 

 ture requiring some attention here is this, that 

 along with the deus ex machina postulated to 

 guide the threads through the active loom of 

 time, and along with the common, every-day 

 forces of the physical sciences, which seem to 

 be conceived as keeping the loom in operation, 

 there seems also to be (though the author does 

 not definitely bring this out) a third force, or 

 at least a third kind of factor, which takes 

 part in conditioning phenomena, namely, 

 accident or chance. One comes away from a 

 careful reading of the entire presentation with 

 a feeling that vital phenomena are brought 

 about through the interaction of these three 

 groups of directing conditions, the X-entity, 

 nature and chance. No doubt the author will 



