NOTES AND LITERATURE 



DARWINISM AND HUMAN LIFE 



Professor James Arthur Thomson's recent 1 book under the 

 title of "Darwinism and Human Life" is most attractive read- 

 ing. Professor Thomson thinks independently and writes fasci- 

 natingly. He gives even the most familiar of subjects new color 

 and atmosphere. 



The matter of the book was given in 1909 as the "South 

 African Lectures," whose " chief aim was to explain the gist of 

 Darwinism." An endeavor was made to add to the necessarily 

 general and somewhat familiar content of the lectures, sugges- 

 tions of how "Darwinism touches every-day life, in farm and 

 garden, in city and empire." 



The Darwinian reader interested by this prospect of finding 

 his old wine put into new bottles runs rapidly through the 

 chapters with the familiar headings of What wo owe to Darwin, 

 The Web of Life, The Struggle for Existence, The Raw Materials 

 of Progress, Facts of Inheritance and Selection: Organic and 

 Social, nosing for Darwinism and Human Life. And he finds 

 himself rather disappointed at first, for he does not discover as 

 much of the practical interlocking of Darwinism and human 

 affairs as perhaps he felt justified in expecting. But in the last 

 chapter he does find it more obviously and in more abundance 

 than elsewhere and he begins really to read. And lo, when he 

 stops reading he finds that he has read the book, all of it, 

 backwards! And is very glad he has. At any rate, all this is 

 what I did. • . th h t bad 



one; that is, not one who has an all other possible evolution 

 factors — phobia. However. Darwinism for him rests ^on, or is, 



human life, its play among individuals, among societies and 

 among races, on which most of his direct application ot e\o n- 

 tion knowledge to human affair rests. Hence organic - •] ■ -tmn. 

 social selection, eugenics, selection of I topias, reversed human 



