822 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XI. No. 282. 



acteristic American forms, and a few — a very 

 few — such forms are figured. With few excep- 

 tions, however, both the types and the forms 

 described for comparison are European species, 

 some of which differ materially from their 

 American cousins ; and we think the Amer- 

 ican editor might have taken the trouble to 

 select American^representatives of such com- 

 mon types as the tortoise, frog, salamander, 

 snail, grass-hopper. Nereis and sea-anemone, 

 or to describe the anatomy of the common 

 squid instead of the European cuttle-fish. The 

 book is nevertheless a very excellent one and 

 will doubtless be welcomed by American teach- 

 ers. 



E. B. W. 



A First Book of Organic Evolution. By D. Ker- 

 footShute, A.B., M.D. Chicago, The Open 

 Court Publishing Company. 1899. Pp. xvi 

 + 285. 



This is a brief account of some of the facts 

 and theories that cluster around the central 

 idea of Organic Evolution. The principle of 

 heredity forms the guiding idea in connection 

 with which is given, among other things, a dis- 

 cussion of the cell-theory, of variation, of the 

 influence of environment, natural selection and 

 the evolution of man. The last section gives a 

 synopsis of the classification of animals, and, in 

 a half page, of plants. There is a list of works 

 of reference that may be useful to the general 

 reader, and a glossary of terms that is on the 

 whole accurate. The majority of the illustra- 

 tions are good, especially the series of full-page 

 plates prepared especially for the work. In 

 the chapter on man sociological and ethical 

 questions are discussed, the idea of design is 

 upheld, and the author decides for a cosmic 

 soul that 'may be self-conscious, wills, thinks, 

 acts and designs.' "Man is the highest and 

 greatest fruitage of the tree of animal life." 

 " He has been the goal and is the completion of 

 organic evolution." " He is not only the 

 highest creature that has ever appeared on the 

 globe, but it seems a safe induction to say that 

 he is also the highest animal that evolution will 

 ever develop here." 



If anyone doubts that man is ' the topmost 

 flower on the highest and straightest branch of the 



tree of life,' he has only to consult the diagram 

 on p. 182. 



In reading ' this little book ' one has continu- 

 ally to remind oneself that it is a ' first book,' 

 that is a primer, and that all the author has 

 tried to do is to sketch an outline of modern 

 biology as related to the theory of descent. Con- 

 sidering the limits of space and the almost in- 

 finite number and variety of the data from 

 which selection is to be made, it must be ad- 

 mitted that the author undertook a difficult 

 task. When we say, that one altogether un- 

 familiar with scientific biology might digest the 

 whole book without acquiring any very serious 

 errors of opinion, we are giving high praise. 

 But, if such an one were to come later to the 

 practical study of medicine or advanced biol- 

 ogy, he might be surprised to learn, that the 

 diagram of the maturation and fertilization 

 of the human ovum given on p. 30 is a pure 

 figment of the imagination, seeing that no one 

 has ever observed these phenomena in the egg 

 of man, that the chromatin of the nucleus is 

 ever in any other form than that of threads, 

 and that therefore chromatin and chromosomes 

 are not synonymous terms (glossary and pas- 

 sim), that the nutrition of a cell does not in- 

 clude irritability and contractility (p. 7), that 

 a cell is not necessarily encysted because it pos- 

 sesses a cell-wall, that parthenogenesis is not 

 a form of budding {p. 42), nor is the fertilized 

 egg 'hermaphrodite' (p. 43). These are but a 

 few examples of the altogether uncritical use of 

 illustrations and terms, which is only partly ex- 

 cusable on the ground of the popular nature of 

 the book. 



The book is also dogmatic. A certain amount 

 of dogmatism is unavoidable, and perhaps even 

 to be desired in so popular a work. But it 

 would be difficult to justify the following state- 

 ment: "Intemperate people * * * also 

 transmit" (by inheritance to their ofispring) 

 "the fatal tendency to crave for the very sub- 

 stances that have acted as poisons on these 

 germ cells before and after fertilization." The 

 transition from fact to theory is, indeed, every- 

 where so easily made, that one uninitiated must 

 be in constant doubt of his footing. 



While the book never rises above the intel- 

 lectual or literary level of the freshman class 



