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NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 



The Theory of Evolution in the Light of Facts. By Karl Frank, 

 S.J. Translated from the German by C. T. Druery, 

 F.L.S. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd. 



The interest and importance of this publication lie in the 

 theological position of its author combined with the authoritative 

 imprimatur of the great Order to which he belongs. For this 

 book is no example of the " modernism " to which the door of the 

 Boman Church is now " slammed, barred, and bolted," but is 

 printed with the full licence of the still strongest and pre- 

 eminently dialectical society of that great Communion. 



The argument used is neither anti-scientific nor pro-Catholic. 

 If we define the word " evolution " as a more or less ratiocinative 

 process by which on scientific data we seek to unravel and 

 understand the cosmic process, we shall not disagree with Father 

 Frank fundamentally, though of course we cannot expect to be 

 allowed to define a term which is used by him as the centre 

 of his argument. His conclusions — and, we take it, also the 

 decision of his Order — are given in the following paragraph: — 

 " Theories of evolution will remain, since everything points to 

 the fact that there was and is an evolution of the organic world. 

 This evolution, however, does not express itself in quite im- 

 possible spontaneous ' leaps ' from the inorganic to the organic, 

 or from plants to animals, and also not in plan and objectless 

 hither-and-thither variation, but in a constant maintenance of 

 the harmony between construction and function and the external 

 conditions of life, and in constant development of the bases, 

 since ' bases ' — and these, too, for one definite end — must exist, 

 as the result is always in one definite direction — viz. the purpose- 

 ful, the vitally capable." Of course, Father*Frank adds the 

 postulate, that the evolutionary tendencies are creative and not 

 accidental. 



A chapter on Adaptive Phenomena in Symbiotics (Ant guests 

 and Termite guests) is given by Father Wasmann, and no better 



