Abstract
“CONFESSION of failure,“ Prof. Osbornwrites, “is part of the essential honesty of scientific thought.” Wave after wave of evolutionary theory has prompted research, but, in spite of many new facts, there has been little fresh enlightenment since Darwin's day. “The chief causes of the orderly evolution of the germ are still entirely unknown.” So the author has sought for a fresh starting-point— “an energy conception of evolution.” He would take the organon of physico-chemical science for a while, leaving morphology and bionomics to the end. There are four main complexes of energy to be considered — the inorganic environment, the organism, the heredity germ, and the animate environment. How are they adjusted to one another? What in particular are the relations of the heredity germ with the other complexes, for are we not slow to learn Weismanh's lesson that the essential question is as to germinal evolution, not as to bodily evolution? The heredity germ remains inconceivable as regards its development, its lineage, and its evolution: Thus, in his preface, Prof. Osborn cleans the slate. His essential honesty is a little depressing, but the general idea is: We have been thinking too much from Form backwards; let us try to think from Energy forwards.
The Origin and Evolution of Life on the Theory of Action, Reaction, and Interaction of Energy.
By Prof. H. F. Osborn. Pp. xxxi + 322. (London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd., 1918.) Price 25s. net.
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T., J. The Origin and Evolution of Life on the Theory of Action, Reaction, and Interaction of Energy . Nature 103, 201–202 (1919). https://doi.org/10.1038/103201a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/103201a0
