“ The Oecology of Plants 
225 
certainly be extremely valuable. Many of the incidental dis¬ 
cussions are strikingly characterised by the author’s skill in 
dealing with difficult and obscure problems. This remark also 
applies, in a high degree, to the concluding section on “The 
Struggle between Plant-Communities,” though in the final chapter 
on the origin of species Professor Warming still finds it necessary 
to make the assumption “ that plants possess a peculiar inherent 
force or faculty by the exercise of which they directly adapt 
themselves to new conditions, that is to say, they change in 
such a manner as to become fitted for existence in accordance with 
their new’ surroundings.” The appeal to a generalized “ inherent 
force or faculty ” which enables a plant to react usefully to itself 
whatever the nature of the stimulus really does seem to amount 
to a frank abandonment of scientific method. Surely it is better 
to say that we cannot understand adaptation at all, than to resort 
to the assumption of what amounts to a miraculous “faculty” 
entirely out of line with physical concepts, if we no longer believe 
that natural selection is a generally effective cause of the origin of 
adaptations. To the reviewer it seems that the modern tendency 
to discredit natural selection arises partly from the increasing 
evidence that Darwin was wrong in attaching the most importance 
to small indefinite variations in the origin of species, whereas, in 
reality, the validity of the theory of natural selection in the broad 
sense does not rest on the nature of the variations that have given 
rise to species. But this point does not, of course, touch Professor 
Warming’s position, which has all along rested on a belief in 
so-called “ direct adaptation.” 
The presentation of the book in English (it is not quite clear 
from the prefatory note whether the author wrote the text in 
English, or whether Professor Groom translated it) is very satis¬ 
factory ; though, in the exceedingly difficult, not to say hopeless task, 
of finding good English equivalents for various foreign technical or 
quasi-technical terms, we can scarcely congratulate Professor 
Balfour and Professor Groom on complete success. To take, for 
instance, the treatment of “moors.” In the first place it is 
doubtful if we can legitimately use the English word “ moor ” as 
an equivalent of the German “ Moor,” i.e., to include all plant 
communities on peat. To a modern Englishman, at least, the 
idea of a “ moor” does not include the German “ Flachmoor ” or 
“ Niedermoor,” which is generally called in this country a “fen” 
or “marsh” (though locally the word “moor” still remain, as 
in Sedgemoor in Somerset, and in the old names of some of the 
Cambridgeshire fens). In the “New English Dictionary” the 
meaning of “moor ” as “ marsh ” is given as obsolete. It is always 
extremely dangerous to restrict or extend the meanings of common 
words in order to create technical terms. But even, if we allow 
this (since there is evidence that the word “moor” originally applied 
to peaty districts in general) “high-moor” is not good as an equivalent 
of “ Hochmoor.” “ High-moor” inevitably suggests the notion of a 
moor which lies high above the sea. “ Low-moor ” is scarcely 
better for “ Flachmoor.” 
It may be conceded that “fell-field” is a good etymological 
equivalent of the Danish “ Fjeldmark,” but the use of the English 
word “ fell ” (“ hill ” or “ upland country ”) is strictly local, nor has 
