■Iam AHY (5, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



27 



P. N. Waggett contributes an essay entitled 

 ' The Church as Seen from the Outside,' in 

 which he concludes by stating the High Angli- 

 can, as opposed to the so-called Erastian, view ; 

 while, very fittingly, Mr. Wilfred Ward speaks 

 for the Church of Rome. The editor furnishes 

 a worthy introduction. 



Obviously, in such a collection, comparisons 

 were odious. But it may be of interest to 

 state that the freshest essay comes from the 

 newest science — sociology — and that it is sup- 

 plemented by Professor Geddes' paper, which 

 represents the same general outlook. The 

 most striking contribution is that of the Hon. 

 Bertrand Russell, who drives home the prob- 

 lem under review, nothing extenuating in the 

 logical consequences of modern scientific re- 

 search. One may add, further, that, for 

 American readers, the book can not fail to 

 possess additional suggestiveness because writ- 

 ten under British influences. In other words, 

 when more of our scientific men find it pos- 

 sible to write like Sir Oliver Lodge, Professor 

 Arthur Thomson and the Hon. Bertrand Rus- 

 sell, and when more of our religious mentors 

 can speak like the Rev. John Kclman and the 

 Rev. Philip Napier Waggett, we shall be in 

 far better -position to ' get together ' for the 

 discussion of subjects now agitated or about to 

 be agitated. To render my meaning plainer ; 

 I fear that an American botanist, speaking of 

 his Presbyterian bretliren, would scarcely find 

 warrant for such a pronouncement as this : 

 " So changing are the times that there seems 

 nowadays to be more independent and specu- 

 lative thinking among the aspirants to the 

 Scottish ministry, once so strict, than among 

 those of the university faculties of medicine, 

 once and again so comparatively free; at any 

 rate, since Robertson Smith, there has prob- 

 ably been less general ignorance of the results, 

 and even of the methods of scientific research 

 among the students of the older faculty than 

 of the more modern one" (p. 185). Undoubt- 

 edly, conditions obtain in the old country that 

 we do not enjoy, for there the iinicersitii atti- 

 tude, in contradistinction to that of the usual 

 theological seminary, exercises much more 

 potent sway over candidates for the ministry. 



Hence, perhaps, the possibility of such a book 

 as this. 



No doubt the work is tentative, not con- 

 clusive. No doubt one of the ecclesiastical 

 contributors alludes darkly to a possibile 

 double truth — one for science, another for re- 

 ligion, and a second openly adopts this doc- 

 trine, which really evades the entire question 

 at issue. But, even so, the collection remains 

 notable and, as I indicated at the outset, has 

 everything to recommend it to reflective men, 

 no matter on which side of the fence their 

 main presuppositions happen to lie. More- 

 over, the brilliant criticisms of educational 

 formalism, supplied by Mr. Branford and Pro- 

 fessor Geddes, can not fail to set us thinking 

 with reference to some of our own potent, if 

 intangible, academic problems. 



R. M. Wenley. 



UXIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN. 



HCIEXTIFIC -JorUXALii AXD ARTICLES. 



The Fhnif World, the official organ of the 

 Wild Flower Preservation Society of America, 

 now in its seventh volume, will, on January 

 1, come imder the editorial management of 

 Professor Francis E. Lloyd, head of the de- 

 partment of biology in Teachers College. 



The Journal of Comparative Neurology and 

 Psychology, for November, has as the leading 

 article a paper of seventy pages entitled, ' The 

 Behavior of Paramecium : Additional Fea- 

 tures and General Relations,' by LI. S. Jen- 

 nings. On the basis of a summary of previous 

 work on Paramecium, cxperiiientallj' con- 

 trolled, and a large body of new observations 

 t!ie reactions of this type are critically anal- 

 yzed and its ' action system ' formulated. The 

 di-;cussion of the nature of stinudation and 

 of the reactions of Paramecium in detail gives 

 further STipport to the author's claim that the 

 current theories of tropism need radical re- 

 vision. The number further contains an 

 editorial by Dr. Yerkes on ' Physiology and 

 Psychology ' and a biographical sketch, with 

 portrait and bibliography, of the foimder of 

 the journal and late editor-in-chief. Dr. C. L. 

 Herrick. 



