S8 Scientific Intelligence. 



III. Miscellaneous Scientific Intelligence. 



1. Development and Evolution, including Psychophysical Evo- 

 lution, Evolution by Orthopia sy, and the theory of Genetic Modes; 

 by Jambs Mark Baldwin. 395 pp. (The Macmillan Company, 

 1902.) — A convenient handbook of the theory of Orthoplasy as 

 held by Principal Lloyd Morgan, Professor H. F. Osborne and 

 especially by Professor James Mark Baldwin, is found in a book 

 published under the title Development and Evolution, by the 

 latter author. About half of the volume has appeared in shorter 

 published articles more or less revised in their present form, while 

 the remainder is an expansion of the subject on its psychological 

 side. A brief definition of Organic Selection is given on p. 151 : 

 "Organic Selection: the perpetuation and development of con- 

 genital variations in consequence of individual accommodations. " 

 And the author's point of view may be gathered from a longer 

 quotation. After mentioning objections to both neo-Darwinism 

 and neo-Lamarckism, the author writes: "There is another prin- 

 ciple at work whose operation is directly supplementary to nat- 

 ural selection — the principle already described above under the 

 name of Organic Selection. Put very generally, this principle 

 may be stated as follows : acquired characters, or modifications, 

 or individual adaptations, — all that we are familiar with in the 

 earlier papers under the term ' accommodations,' — while not 

 directly inherited, are yet influential in determining the course of 

 evolution indirectly. For such modifications and accommoda- 

 tions keep certain animals alive ; in this way occur the varia- 

 tions which they represent from the action of natural selection, 

 and so allow new variations in the same direction to arise in the 

 next and following generations ; while variations in other direc- 

 tions are not thus kept alive and so are lost. The species will, 

 therefore, make progress in the same directions as those first 

 marked out by the acquired modifications, and will gradually 

 'pick up,' by congenital variation, the same characters which 

 were at first only individually acquired. The result will be the 

 same, as to these characters, as if they had been directly inher- 

 ited," etc. (p. J 38.) We reach a more specific and perhaps 

 clearer idea of the author's thesis by noting his phrasing of the 

 means and results of the fourteen different sorts of selection the 

 author has culled from various sources (p. 166). The means of 

 Natural selection are listed as struggle for existence and inherent 

 weakness; the results are Survival of the fittest individuals, and 

 (2d) the Destruction of unfit individuals. In contrast Organic 

 selection has as means accommodation, modification and growth 

 processes, and the results the Survival of accommodating and 

 modified individuals. 



From a perusal of the book one is impressed with the multi- 

 plicity of forms in which ideas about evolution can be phrased, 

 and with the wonderful evolution of evolution since the publica- 

 tion of the Origin of Species. h. s. w. 



