Force and Determinism

Abstract

AGAIN and again is the physicist, in the course of his researches, brought face to face with philosophical questions. It then depends upon the bent and bias of his mind whether he is content to leave these questions as he finds them, or is impelled to adapt them to some more or less plausible metaphysical solution. Dr. Croll, whose death we have so recently had occasion to lament, made his mark by a skilful application of physical reasoning to sundry difficult problems connected with climate and time. It need hardly be said that the whole tendency of his thought and work was in support of the doctrine of evolution in its widest sense. In the volume before us he discusses, after forty years of meditation, the fundamental principles which underlie this doctrine.

The Philosophical Basis of Evolution.

By James Croll (London: Edward Stanford, 1891.)