succession, morphology, embryology, classification, and many other peculiarities of organization, such as its fundamental unity of composition, but more especially the fact, so far as has yet been proved, of the derivation of all observed individuals from more or less similar parent stocks, constitute a remarkable collection of accumulating and converging lines of evidence in favor of the doctrine of specific organic descent.
These proofs, however, are merely circumstantial; the relation of this problem to human experience being such as to render it incapable of demonstration; still, the gravest objection to the theory of organic transmutation is the difficulty of understanding how matters could have been so constituted and arranged that from simple and indefinite beginnings such wonderfully complex and determinate results could have been obtained. Natural selection does not account for the origin of specific characters, but merely explains how, out of numerous so-called spontaneous variations, such only can be preserved as are in sufficient harmony with their environments.
And, while changing incidence of conditions is undoubtedly instrumental in determining organic sequences, it is important to ascertain what is the nature of the factors engaged, and how they cooperate in the evolution and establishment of distinct specific characters.The main conception of Dr. Fraser's thesis may be gathered from the following passages:
As man, by factitiously arranging the means at his disposal in accordance with his needs and tastes, institutes systems of artificial co-ordination, so the spontaneous adjustment of organic activities, in subjection to, and in conformity with, prevailing correlated tendencies and requirements, constitutes a principle of natural co-ordination. In the elaboration and establishment of specific organic results, this principle fulfills the two distinct though complemental offices of a directive and a selective function; the former determining each temporary step in the process, the latter deciding which out of many courses will be permanently or successively adopted.
In a dependent evolving system, with abundant accommodation, provisions, and protection, it might remain a matter of indifference what number and kind of forms were produced, as all would alike be preserved, each phase being simply a resultant of the interaction between inward efforts and outward restraints, without the intervention of any subsequent eliminating process. Here the principle of co-ordination could only have directive scope; but, in a circumscribed area with limited supplies and liability to invasion, as soon as the rate of production exceeds the means of support, co-ordination will assume a selective rôle, submitting the various competitors for the different accessible situations to prescribed tests, accepting only such as conform with the required standards, and rigorously rejecting all relatively unsuitable or incompetent ones.
Organization seems to have been planned and conducted according to some such method and design; its potentialities, when properly supplemented, constituting an incalculable fund of transmutable and genetic energies, affording the principle of co-ordination enormous resources whereon to operate, so as to render possible the realization of results practically inconceivable.Population by Ages, United States, New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore. By W. S. Landsberg. Baltimore, Md. Pp. 30. Price, 10 cents.
The author believes that the distribution of a population according to the ages of the individuals is not fortuitous, but is the result of the influences which all the circumstances of a people's life exert upon its existence, naturally conditioned by births and deaths. In the light of this view he discusses the lessons to be drawn from the vital statistics of the United States and the three cities named.
The Minting of Gold and Silver. By Albert Williams, Jr. Pp. 24.
This paper was prepared to form a part of the census report. Without attempting an exhaustive treatise on modern practice in minting, Mr. Williams reports upon the processes employed in the mints at Carson, Nevada, and San Francisco, California.
The Modification of Plants by Climate. By A. A. Crozier. Ann Arbor, Mich. Pp. 35. Price, 25 cents.
In this pamphlet the author discusses a subject concerning which our present knowledge is "scattered and unsatisfactory," and on which he desires to elicit more information. From the facts he has been able to adduce he concludes that enough has been observed to make it evident that variation is not accidental or at random, but is, at least in part, in definite directions and due to definite causes. "It seems to be established that as plants move from the locality of their largest development toward their northern limit of growth they become dwarfed in habit, are rendered more fruitful, and all parts become more highly colored. Their
