Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 5 (1901).djvu/57

Rh directly opposed in its essence to the conclusions prompted by the author's half-hour study of the antecedent actions. The detailed observations of our contributor, Mr. Selous, in these pages are an object-lesson in possible bionomics.

The author is somewhat pessimistic as to the solution of the riddle of life. He regards the questions as to "What makes organic matter behave as we see it behave? what drives the wheels of life, as it drives the planets in their courses? what impels the egg to go through its series of developmental changes?" &c., as beyond the sphere of science, which should give one answer and one only: "Frankly, I do not know; that lies outside my province; ask my sister Metaphysics." But this advice does not prevent Prof. Lloyd Morgan from giving us a really wonderful contribution to the psychological interpretation of animal behaviour; every sentence bears the imprimatur of "thought out." Much more evidence might have been procured, but what is given has been selected with care, and is exhaustively and judicially considered and placed before the reader, to whom the verdict must be left. As an example, we will give one more extract:—"The question has again and again been asked: Do animals reason? And different answers are given by those who are substantially in agreement as to the facts and their interpretation, but are not in agreement as to their use of the word 'reason.' Perhaps, if the question assume the form, Are animals capable of explaining their own acts and the causes of phenomena? the position of those who find the evidence of their doing so insufficient may be placed in a clearer light. This is what is generally meant by the statement that animals have probably not reached the level of rational beings."

is an able advocacy of the universal action of natural selection, written by a Neo-Darwinian, who we read belongs "to those Darwinians who have thrown overboard Lamarckism"; in other words, followers of a Darwinism freed from all taint of Lamarckian heresy. The book itself belongs to that everincreasing literature to which the conception of "Darwinism" has given birth, and is one which cannot be neglected by the