1894.) Recent Literature. — 155 
: Not so definitely stated as by Orr, who finds in the nervous system the 
coordinating mechanism through which consciousness manifests itself, 
but under the domination of the Jaws of the conservation of energy. 
© The author does not claim to have made any new discovery, but 
only to have brought known facts into new relations. There is however, 
a lamentable defect palpable throughout the book in respect to the 
citation of authorities. In some cases, in which our author is not 
alone, he entirely forgets to cite these who have published similar views 
long before the appearance of his work. The suggestion that all bio- 
logical phenomena must be interpreted in terms of the theory of the 
conservation of energy was a thesis defended in several papers pub- 
lished by the present reviewer during the last five years. In his 
argument in support of the first view that energy must be considered 
first of all, the author also fails to appreciate the great complexity of 
the mechanism represented by the cell, nor does he seem to have 
made himself familiar with the very important and pregnant results 
of Quincke, Biitschli, Berthold, Dreyer and others. In another place 
a discovery is mentioned that is undoubtedly to be the first of all 
accredited to Prof. Alpheus Hyatt, instead of to Wurtenberg, namely, 
that evolutionary changes in the Ammonites first show themselves ori 
the outer or last whorl of the shells of these organisms. No credit is 
allowed Prof. Eimer on p. 63, where in a few sentences some of 
the most important results of that ingenious writer are epitomized in 
regard to growth itself as a factor in organic evolution. In the chap- 
ter on the origin of variations, there is some very crude speculation, 
that will hardly bear critical examination, and in one place the author 
shows that he is altogether unfamiliar with Fick’s very important and 
interesting experiments bearing on the origin of joints and the forms 
of articular surfaces. Actinospherium is misspelled “ Actinosphera, ” 
and a cellular structure is ascribed to this protozoan, and the author 
also falls into a teleological trap when he asserts that the vesicles and 
their walls “ cellular spaces” in this organism are forthe purpose of 
giving it permanence of figure and support. On page 49, it is stated 
that “pigment is caused by light acting upon the tissues and where 
there is no light there can be no pigment.” To this it might be 
replied, how about the black pigment of the substantia nigra of the 
human brain ; that is certainly shut out from the light in the centre of 
the head? With certain reservations it is however, certainly true 
that pigmentation is associated with the influence of light as the expe- 
riments of Cunningham and Schiedt on widely diverse forms have 
Proved.. The direct and interesting correlation between coloration and 
