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ANALYSES OF BOOKS. 
Philosophische Consequenzen der Lamarck -Darwin'' schen Ent- 
wickelungs theories Ein Versuch von Dr. Georg von 
Gizycki. Leipzig* and Heidelberg : C. F. Winter. 
In all countries, and certainly not less in England than else- 
where, the first question put regarding any new theory is not so 
much “ Is it true ?” but rather “ To what does it lead ?” The 
public is uneasy lest even the most abstract scientific generali- 
sation may throw an unfavourable side-light upon some of its 
recognised orthodoxies, and will not be consoled with the truism 
that the novelty, if rightly induced from established fabts, cannot 
be hostile save to errors. Unusually violent and lasting has 
been the excitement in the case of the dobtrine of Organic Evo- 
lution. Men of culture, and even of special scientific training, 
like Prof. Virchow, have seen in it not a theory to be dealt with 
like the undulatory hypothesis of light, or the conservation of 
energy, or the Mendelejeffian law of elementary periodicity, but 
as a “heresy” “ leading ”f to social democracy, Nihilism, 
Agnosticism, and other fearful manifestations of the spectre rouge , 
and worthy not of discussion but of repression, as hinted in the 
too famous watchword “ Restringamur.” Nor must it be for- 
gotten that certain men, champions of the social and theological 
views dreaded by the “ powers that be ” have somewhat prema- 
turely claimed Evolutionism as an ally. Some of these coin- 
cident hopes and fears have been ably dealt with by Prof. Oscar 
Schmidt. Still ample room is left for our author, who enters 
upon his task with the declaration that “ a more profound philo- 
sophy must protest against such an abuse of our great theory 
in majorem materialismi et atheismi gloriam .” His objebt is to 
trace out the consequences of the Lamarck-Darwinian theory of 
Evolution in four main direbtions — as regards psychology, the 
theory of cognition, morals, and religion. It may here be re- 
marked that many foreign authors do not sufficiently distinguish 
between Evolutionism in its widest sense, the general theory 
that animals and plants as we now find them have arisen by the 
transformation of a few- — possibly of one — original types, and 
Darwinism the explanation of such transformation as a result of 
natural selection. He quotes from Prof. Zollner the pregnant 
utterance that the dobtrine of Darwin is “ nothing other than the 
* Philosophical Consequences of the Lamarck-Darwinian Theory of Deve- 
lopment. 
f Dr. Bree. 
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