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NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 



The Foundations of Zoology. By Wm. Keith Brooks, Ph.D., 

 LL.D. New York and London : Macmillan & Co. Ltd. 



This volume of the " Columbia University Biological Series " 

 perhaps prompts, rather than explains, the question as to what 

 are " the foundations of Zoology." Are they to be sought in the 

 laboratory, or are they to be derived largely by purely mental pro- 

 cesses? Or are physical demonstrations to be allied to, made 

 altogether subservient, or treated only as secondary in position to 

 philosophical conceptions ? This problem must occur to the 

 reader as he studies in these pages the author's views and com- 

 mentaries on the writings of Huxley, Lamarck, Galton, Weis- 

 mann, Darwin, Paley, Agassiz, and Berkeley. 



Prof. Brooks has a philosophical position of his own. He is 

 clearly not Neo-Lamarckian, a term applied at present to so much 

 American speculation ; he may be better described as Anti- 

 Lamarckian. He is not a Pyrrhonist, though on many questions 

 he gives the verdict only of "not proven." Perhaps an extract 

 may give a better clue to the foundation on which he rears a 

 philosophy which is more critical than affirmative, and vibrates 

 between the idealistic and materialistic conceptions. " I am not 

 able to answer the question whether, in ultimate analysis, the 

 principles of science are physical or metaphysical. I know 

 nothing about things ultimate. I do not know what the relation 

 between mind and matter is. I do not know whether the 

 distinction between * things perceived by sense ' and ' relations 

 apprehended by the mind ' is founded in nature or not ; but I am 

 sure that natural knowledge is useful to me, that it is pleasant, 

 and profitable, and instructive ; and I must ask whether all this 

 does not show that nature is intended ? " 



The main issue is seemingly whether these questions are 

 biological or metaphysical; or whether, appertaining to both 



q2 



