Possible Worlds and Other Papers
by . New York: Harper & Bros. 1928. 8vo. x+305 pp. $2.50.
THIS is not a book for those who are afraid to think, for they will find it disturbingly provocative of thought. Its author is a distinguished English biologist richly endowed with the scientific imagination, which here ranges like a searchlight over many fields.Possible Worlds is a collection of thirty-five papers dealing with a wide variety of topics. Probably no one is better equipped than Mr. Haldane to ‘humanize’ the latest facts and conclusions of biological science, and rather more than half these papers deal engagingly with subjects in this field. One learns why for every animal there is a most convenient sizc, and why a hare could not be as large as a hippopotamus or a whale as small as a herring. Why an insect is not afraid of gravity, but in great danger when going for a drink.
Then there is the artificial ‘cell’ which absorbs a glass thread covered with sealing wax, removes the wax, and spits out the thread. We are told of enzymes, which can break up to simpler compounds more than a million times their weight of sugar, and uf vitamines, about which ‘a very large amount of nonsense is written.’ Under the heading ' Man as a Sea Beast,’ we learn many surprising and suggestive facts about ‘the Hundred million million cells whose coöperation is our life.’
One’s interest in biology is further quickened by many curious examples of food control in insect societies, and of the relations of water and salt and oxygen to the human system. The lure of biology as a profession for the timorous is not increased, however, by the vivid descriptions of the author’s sensations during the experiments in which he substituted himself for the usual rabbit, and thereby learned how tetany in babies might be relieved.
Still other papers of the biological series deal with subjects of such important and immediate interest as cancer research, the nature of immunity, blood transfusion with the curious relations existing between donor and recipient, the encouraging results of the fight against tuberculosis.
The few brief sketches of a biographical sort included in the volume are less satisfying, but most readers will find ample compensation, if not, indeed, the chief significance of the book, in the numerous papers in which the author gives rein to speculation and takes hurdles before which many of us pause. He sees no limit to human progress, provided only that man will take his own evolution in hand. Should he fail to do so, man and all his works will go down into oblivion and darkness. Then the enterprising rat may have his chance to evolve toward intelligence.
There is much to challenge interest and arouse discussion, if not controversy, in the papers entitled ‘When I Am Dead,’ ‘The Duty of Doubt,’ and ‘Science and Theology as Art Forms.’ Many will agree with the opening statement in ‘Eugenics and Social Reform’ that ‘perhaps the greatest tragedy of our age is the misapplication of science,’ but it brings the shock of surprise to he told on such high authority that in America the science of heredity is being used ‘by some of the most ferocious enemies of human liberty.’ Whether one agrees or not with this and many other of the author’s dicta, Possible Worlds is warmly recommended to all courageous souls who would ‘let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts.’
ARTHUR D. LITTLE