NOTES AND LITERATURE. 



GENERAL BIOLOGY. 



A Well Balanced Book on Theoretical Evolution.^ — It seems to 

 be generally agreed that we are beginning a new era in the study of 

 Evolution ; an era in which analytic and experimental methods will 

 replace that of sharp logic. But the experimentalist works blindly 

 without hypotheses and these the speculative writings have provided. 

 It is a useful thing, at the beginning of this new era to have these 

 hypotheses brought together by a broad-minded investigator ; and 

 this is the very arduous task that Plate has well done. 



The immediate purpose of the work has been to stem the tide 

 away from Darwinism, to show that whatever limitations the theory 

 of natural selection may have as a complete theory of the origin of 

 species it remains the only satisfactory theory of adaptation. The 

 book, which is much increased in size over the first edition, is divided 

 into five chapters. The first deals with the objections, less or more 

 serious, that have been raised against Darwinism in the strict sense ; 

 the second with the different forms of selection and elimination ; the 

 third with the complementary theories ; the fourth with the basic 

 elements of evolution from which the theory of selection starts, 

 namely, excess of births, variability, and means of isolation ; the fifth 

 with the range of applicability of the Darwinian and the Lamarckian 

 factors. Then follow a Bibliography of over lo pages and a good 

 index. 



The book is exceedingly satisfactory in most particulars. It is 

 refreshing to find an author who does not insist that there is only 

 one method of evolution. " Das Problem der Artbildung " he says, 

 page 228, "darf nicht einseitig behandelt werden, weder ausschlies- 

 slickvon Lamarck'schen noch vom selectionistischen Standpunkte ; 

 nur die Vereinigung beider Principien ftihrt zum Ziele." Naturally 

 the author does not follow Weismann in rejecting the inheritance of 

 acquired characters and he is quite ready to accept the possibility of 



