It is difficult to frame an estimate of this work which will beaccepted as just by the majority of interested readers. The so-calledGeneral Biologist, who is satisfied with speculative results only, anddoes not concern himself with the working literature of Biology, willprobably regard it favourably as a serious and even important pieceof criticism, but the specialist, who expects the history of Science tobe recorded with detachment and scholarship, will think otherwise.For example, we cannot imagine any Geologist or Pal?ontologistreading Chapter xviii without indignation. The implication that theincompleteness of the pal?ontological record is a kind of wheeze todisguise the poverty of the results obtained ignores the most evidentfacts, not only of Pal?ontology, but of Geology itself. In most casesthe sedimentary rocks represent but an infinitesimal proportion of thetime spent in making them, and thousands of feet of strata over vastareas may either have failed to be deposited or have been subse-quently removed. Hence these rocks would not give us a completerecord, even if organic remains had been continuously preserved inthem. It is doubtful whether Prof. Radl has fully grasped the bearingsof phylogeny as they appear to the Pal?ontologist.
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