September 16, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



373 



tions for collecting and preserving material ; (3) 

 lists of apparatus and reagents ; (4) lists of ref- 

 erence books, and (5) outline of classification. 



Some new uses of old terms are introduced 

 here and there. Thus we have ' ovary' used 

 for oogone, carpogone and archegone, and 

 ' ovulary' for the structure hitherto called the 

 ovary in the flowering plants. ' Sperm' and 

 ' spermary' replace antherozoid and antherid. 

 ' Egg' is consistently used throughout for the 

 female gamete. We do not quite like the use 

 of ' megaspore' as synonymous with ' embryo 

 sac' in angiosperms, and feel sure that it will 

 lead to the confusion of the beginner. It is 

 doubtless impossible to make a clear statement 

 of all the homologies of the gametophyte of 

 angiosperms iu an elementary work, but it is 

 certainly not necessary to simplify the state- 

 ment by running together two structures so dis- 

 tinct as the uninucleate megaspore and the 

 multinucleate embryo sac. 



We trust that the author's wish may be re- 

 alized, namely, "it is greatly to be desired 

 that the too common thought of plants as things 

 to be classified may be replaced by the concep- 

 tion of them as beings at work, to be studied 

 alive," and we believe that his book will help 

 to bring it to pass. 



Chaeles E. Bessey. 



Grundprobleme der Naturwiasenachaft. Briefs 



einea unmodernen Naturforschers. By Dr. 



Adolf Wagner. Berlin, Gebrueder Born- 



traeger. 1897. Pp. vi + 255. 



The sub-title of this sharp little polemic might 

 ■well have been Schopenhauer versus Bilchner. 

 There is much else in the book, but that about 

 it which is most vital is the application of the 

 philosophy of Welt als Wille und Vorstellung 

 to such views of nature as characterize Kraft 

 und Stoff. But the actual sub-title does very 

 well. ' TJnmodern' the author certainly is. 

 Kraft und Stoff, his arch-enemy, long ago had 

 its day ; and even the aftermath of discussion 

 over Ostwald's Liibeck address, the most 

 modern scientific matter of which he seems con- 

 scious, has been garnered in. This is the most 

 obvious fact about the book ; it is belated. The 

 ultra materialistic views of nature and the hard 

 and fast notions of matter, atom, molecule. 



ether, etc. , which the author ascribes to natur- 

 alists, are no longer held by them, or are held 

 with a genial flexibility which make the Doc- 

 tor's savage onslaught seem whimsical. 



Then, the book is arrogant in tone. Rarely 

 in these days does the venerable speculative 

 philosophy so lord it over youthful science. 

 Although the book takes the form of letters (in 

 reality a single letter) addressed by a humanist 

 to an old university friend in the other camp, 

 yet the ' lieber Freund,' iu spite of the con- 

 stant ' Du' and ' Dir,' everywhere gets hard 

 blows and short shrift. His views are ' non- 

 sense,' 'absurd,' 'impossible to one who has 

 had a single semester of philosophy, ' etc. 



And yet it would not be easy to find a better 

 resume of the idealist position with regard to 

 the fundamental problems of nature and science. 

 The book is very readable. It is full of matter. 

 The style is picturesque, lively and popular ; 

 the argument clear and mercifully brief. It is 

 a strong book of its kind. 



The first half of the book is a coherent argu- 

 ment for a certain view of the world ; the second 

 part seems to be occupied (I have not read it 

 completely) with an elaborate a priori discus- 

 sion of the nature of human, animal and plant 

 life. With regard to this part it is only neces- 

 sary to remark how the philosopher, after be- 

 laboring the eternal is (the assumption of exist- 

 ence and reality) of science, allows his own 

 equally gratuitous must be to run riot. How 

 should it be so diflicult to see that we cannot 

 any more get outside and beyond ourselves in 

 philosophy than in science. We project our- 

 selves into our science. Granted. But so, too, 

 we project ourselves into our philosophy, which 

 is, out and out, as truly as science, a creature of 

 taste, mood, temperament, race, age and en- 

 vironment. 



What, then, are the ' Gruudprobleme ?' They 

 are questions concerning the nature of things ; 

 concerning criteria of reality ; concerning the 

 relation of experience to knowledge. You sci- 

 entists build upon experience. First find how 

 far experience is valid. You talk of realities. 

 What do you mean by reality ? What are your 

 tests of reality ? 



The author, though everywhere aflirming the 

 idealist position, very sensibly refrains from any 



