The Making of Species

Abstract

IF this work fails to bring about that revolution in biological science which its announcement led us to expect, it is not for lack of confidence on the part of the authors or their publisher. We were informed (by advertisement) that with the exception of a certain well-known treatise by de Vries this book was “the most important contribution to biological science which has appeared since Darwin's ‘Origin of Species.’” We were further told that “the authors have no difficulty in demolishing some of the theories which are most cherished by biologists of to-day—notably those of mimicry and recognition markings in birds,” and that “the facts which they have brought together undermine the whole of the massive superstructure which Neo-Darwinians have erected on the foundation of the theory of natural selection.” A few extracts from the preface will suffice to reveal the tone which pervades this latest attack upon the theory of natural selection:— The Making of Species. By Douglas Dewar Frank Finn. Pp. xix + 400; 15 illustrations. (London: John Lane, 1909.) Price 7s. 6d.