NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.
Since the publication of Semper's 'Animal Life,' we know of no book that has so surveyed the field of animal bionomics as this volume. The standpoint of the authors, however, is very different. Semper was outside the cult of Neo-Darwinism; Jordan and Kellogg will probably satisfy the canons of that apparently now dominant school of thought. When the perplexed evolutionist, wearied and unsettled with the new theories of advanced disciples, now and again goes back to the teaching of the master, and reperuses that wonderful argument in the 'Origin of Species,' he finds that Darwin records the facts and seeks an explanation for them in the doctrine of "natural selection." In the modern literature the method seems somewhat reversed, "natural selection" being taken as the fact, and the details of animal life as its evidence. There may be little intrinsic difference in the two positions, but the first requires argument, whilst the second relies on evidence too little submitted to cross-examination. Throughout the volume we are noticing this latter position is very pronounced, and we watch the natural transition of theories into dogmas.
The chapter on "Instinct and Reason" is one among the many interesting subjects discussed in this suggestive book, and here the argument enters the psychological arena. Our authors define instinct as "automatic obedience to the demands of external conditions," and state that it "differs from other allied forms of response to external conditions in being hereditary, continuous from generation to generation." But though it is stated "this sufficiently distinguishes it from reason," we are told that the line between the two "cannot be sharply drawn." This rather minimises the subsequent complaint that the "confusion of highly perfected instinct with intellect is very common in popular discussions."
