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The author of this little book, who is Professor of Anatomy in Sheffield University, is 'an ardent and zealous advocate of the doctrine of somatic inheritance' (p. 43). He regards 'somatic inheritance' (transmission of acquired characters) as the prime factor in evolution, and seeks to show, as others have done before him, that 'organic memory' is what he calls the vis a tergo of evolutionary change.
The book contains no marshalled evidence, no sustained argument. The author is extremely discursive, occupying most of his space in stating his own beliefs and describing various biological phenomena in terms of them, supporting himself by quotations from Hering, Semon, Samuel Butler, Sir Francis Darwin, and others. The last chapter begins: 'The evidences that memory is the mainspring, the vis a tergo of Evolution, are convincing'. It may be so, but unfortunately the author quite fails to make the point clear to his readers. Incidentally the book contains many sound, if somewhat platitudinous, precepts, especially in the chapter on Education.