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The author proposes the consideration of certain aspects of evolution, more particularly the special qualities which have been developed in the domesticated animals by breeders, from the standpoint of energy. The work is essentially the work of a man who is acquainted with the facts of breeding rather than the laboratory scientist, and although he labels his book dynamic evolution, his method of treatment is based upon concepts of matter and energy which are very loose and in their application essentially static. However, the large experience and wide knowledge he has of the practical problems has led him to certain conclusions which are exceedingly interesting, aside from his particular way of stating them or the theory which he elaborates to explain them.
In the first place his fundamental theory seems to be that energy is something which can be accumulated by work and as such is in some way capable of transmission through the mechanisms of heredity. It is a restatement in different language of the Lamarkian hypothesis of use and disuse.
Among the interesting conclusions with reference to man are that famous men are invariably the children of old fathers, or at least if the father was relatively young the mother was the child of an old father, which, expressed in his terms means that the child is the result of an accumulation of energy, which manifests itself in great mental ability. He finds also that while the children of young parents are more apt to attain maturity than the children of aged parents, still of those children who do attain maturity the children tend to live longer in proportion to the age of their parents at the time of their conception, that is that the older the parent, the better the chance the child has for a long life, provided it once attains maturity. This is an interesting conclusion particularly as it is diametrically opposed to recent studies on longevity by Alexander Graham Bell.
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