The Nature of Man
Reading edition
Studies in Optimistic Philosophy
By Élie Metchnikoff Sub-Director of the Pasteur Institute, Paris
Translated with an Introduction by P. Chambers Mitchell Secretary of the Zoölogical Society
Octavo. Illustrated. Popular Edition. $1.50 net. By mail, $1.65
It is not often that a scientific book may be read with ease, profit, and pleasure by the general reader, so that M. Metchnikoff's book comes in the nature of an agreeable surprise. It is marked by a refreshing naïveté and a large simplicity which are characteristically Russian. The scientific importance of this work is so great that it is spoken of in England as the most valuable production since Darwin's Origin of Species.
Opinions of the Press
"An extremely interesting and typical book.... With a distinguished frankness, M. Metchnikoff defines his attitude to our universal prepossessions. It is his theory that the infirmities of age are to be overcome. If there be ground for this conception, humanity is to be profoundly changed and what we call life now, will be the childhood and youth of that longer and larger life."—H. G. Wells, in London Speaker.
"Undoubtedly a great book (in some quarters it has been hailed as the greatest since Darwin's famous message to the world) and should be read by all intelligent men and women."—The Nation.
"A book to be set side by side with Huxley's Essays, whose spirit it carries a step further on the long road towards its goal."—Mail and Express.