The Problems of Life
Life : Outlines of General Biology. By Sir 3. Arthur Thomson
University Press. 18s.)
Sin Annum. TnomsoN and Professor Geddes are perhaps the only scientific writers of whom we can truthfully say what Johnson said of Goldsmith—" He is now writing a Natural History and will make it as entertaining- as a Persian Tale.". The cheery optimism and lambent humour of the one—the shrewd wisdom and wide sociological studies of the other— combine with a vast knowledge of all forms of life to make a book of unrivalled interest as well as of immense authority. They modestly speak of their magnum opus as but preliminary to the " Encyclopaedia Biologica " of the future. But nothing beyond these packed, thoughtful and entertaining volumes can be needed by the "common-sense person" (for whom the authors acknowledge themselves to have a great respect) to enable him to understand all that modern biological science has to say about the fundamental problems of life. Thare is much in them, of course, which will mainly appeal to the student and be discussed by the specialist—notably, for instance, the authors' well-known though not yet universally accepted Metabolic Theory of Sex and their conception of the Cell-Cycle. But it is with the attitude of the " general reader " that we are naturally concerned in these untechnical pages. For him or her no more fascinating and valuable survey of Natural History—in the widest sense of the word —has yet been published in English, or so far as we know in any language.
To give any idea of the wealth of knowledge, of illustration and of suggestion contained in these volumes is quite impossible within the limits at our disposal. Our aim is to send readers to the book itself, and we are confident of earning their grati- tude. Perhaps those who are a little doubtful of tackling what is so obviously an oeuvre de longue haleine may be advised to go straight to the great chapter on " Biology in its Wider Aspects," towards the end of the work, in which the authors lead us from the primal Book of Nature, on which they have drawn so fully in the earlier pages, through the practical applications of biological discovery to our wealth, health and well-being, to its bearings upon the wider problems of human ethics, education and social organization. irt would hardly be going too far to say of Professor Geddes what Mazzini once said of Ruskin—that he has " the most analytic mind in Europe." Many of his familiar lemmata make their first appearance for the general reader in these pages, and they are as permanently valuable as they are immediately interesting. It is, however, unfair, even if possible, to dissociate his part in the book from that of the colleague with whom he has worked and thought in a unique partnership—almost a form of symbiosis—for more than forty years. Their analysis of the major problems of human life and society in terms of the eternal triad of organism, function and environment, reinforced after Le Play by the other triad of folk, place and work, is a masterly piece of work of the kind which is vitally seminal for the future.
Having thus got into the spirit of the book, the general reader will be well advised, like the ram in the fable, to begin at the beginning and work his way right through this mag- nificent panorama of a thousand million years of evolution. " Work " is hardly the right word, for the whole book, with the exception of a very few technical pages, is extremely easy reading, thanks to the lucid methods and happy vein of illustration adopted by the authors. They begin with what used to be called generally " natural history," but now has specialized under the harder name of ecology into an account of the plants and animals which inhabit the earth. An admirably Wear and simple chapter on physiology leads up to one on reproduction and sex, in which the special views of the authors are clearly stated and emphasized. A most amusing chapter on the relations of mind to body, as illustrated by animal behaviour, and one on organic form prepare the way for a full and explicit account of the problems of evolution, culminating in man himself. The incidental remarks on the status of woman, considered biologically, form one of the most illuminating discourses on that very urgent question which we have seen. Then at last we come back to the great chapter already mentioned, which can now be read again with fuller comprehension, and the book ends with an inspiring application of the facts and views already stated to the elaboration of a theory of life on the neovitalistic plane. " Organic life is based on mechanism but transcends it. . . . There are trends in organic evolution which are in line with what man at his best has always regarded as best. Nature is not against us, but for us."
Dr. Singer's Short History of Biology is a learned piece of work on lines similar to those of his history of medicine. It is not a mere catalogue of names and dates—as such books are too apt to become—but aims successfully at giving " a critical survey of the historical development of biological problems." The language is simple and the treatment non-technical. Dr. Singer begins with the medical school of Cos, which arose about two thousand five hundred years ago—the earliest scientific institution which has left any written record of itself, though we should like to know where Homer's army surgeons studied. From the Greeks he brings us rapidly through the Middle Ages to the dawn of modern science, with the invention of the microscope, and down to Darwin. In the last half of the book he devotes a separate chapter to the history of the seven biological problems which are outstanding to-day----the cell doctrine, vital activity, relations between bodily functions, biogenesis, embryology, sex and heredity. These chapters are clear, concise and instructive.
Dr. and Mrs. Paul have given us a most excellent translation of the third edition of a well-known German treatise on heredity in man. Dr. Baur sketches the general theory of variation and heredity, Dr. Fischer describes the racial differences in mankind, and Dr. Lenz writes on inherited diseases, on methods, and on the inheritance of intellectual gifts. These last chapters are the most interesting to the general reader ; but the book was well worth translating for the student also. It may be noted in passing that telegony, which Thomson and Geddes admit as possible, though not proved, is set down by Dr. Lenz as a mere super- stition. This should be a great comfort to breeders.
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