pages each, by as many different authors. Probably this review cannot begin more effectively than by presenting a list of these chapters with the names of the authors. They are as follows: I. "History," by Harry Elmer Barnes II. "Human Geography," by Jean Brunhes, translated by E. H. III. "Biology," by Howard Madison Parshley IV. "Social Psychology," by Kimball Young V. "Cultural Anthropology," by Alexander Goldenweiser VII. "Economics," by Karl Worth Bigelow VIII. "Political Science," by Walter James Shepard IX. "Jurisprudence," by Roscoe Pound X. "Ethics," by Robert Chenault Givler As the title of the volume suggests, the effort has been made in each chapter to present concisely the history down to the present time of the discipline dealt with, and to survey the present trend and prospects of each. On the whole, the project has been very successfully carried out. The reviewer can call to mind single volumes of respectable length in which attempts have been made to summarize the history of single social sciences, but in which there is less information and less illuminating interpretation than can be found in the corresponding chapter of the present book. For the greater number of these chapters it can be said that perspective has been admirably preserved; that is, the earlier periods have been summarized briefly, while the detail is enlarged as the twentieth century is approached. This is not true, however, at least not to the same extent as of the remaining chapters, of those dealing with sociology, political science, and ethics. Professor Hankins has been content in his chapter on sociology to summarize recent and contemporary sociology in the form of a table in which the names of some five hundred of those who have contributed directly and indirectly to contemporary sociology are classified under five main headings, with thirty-one subheadings, some of which are further subdivided. As far as could be determined by a hasty canvass, none of the names is repeated in this classification; hence, it is evidently in itself a pretentious piece of work, possibly the best that could be done for sociology in its present status within the space limits set. Shepard, in his chapter on political science, has dealt with contemporary political science mainly in terms of general trends, although his chapter, like all the others, is abundantly supplied with footnotes in which specific examples of the tendencies mentioned are cited. Professor Givler has devoted the section assigned to recent and contemporary ethical thought in his chapter largely to propaganda for the type of ethics he has set forth at greater length in his recent book, The Ethics of Hercules. This appears to be the only instance in the book of the use of a chapter for propaganda purposes beyond a reasonably human and allowable degree. Not the least valuable aspect of this volume is the guidance it can give to the serious student of any phase of social science in appreciating and understanding the logical and historical interdependence of the various specialized divisions of the general field. The conviction is expressed by a number of the contributors that there is after all only one social science, the several special social sciences, so called, being simply specialized techniques for the study of special problems. Professor Small has been preaching this doctrine for a decade and a half-ever since the appearance, in 1910, of his little essay, The Meaning of Social Science; it is therefore of no little interest to one of his disciples to find it recognized in so impressive a volume as the one under consideration here. This volume which Professor Barnes has assembled should prove itself very useful to a wide range of intermediate and advanced students of the social and humanistic sciences, and will doubtless accomplish much in the way of promoting mutual understanding among them. UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO FLOYD N. HOUSE Tiersoziologie. By FRIEDRICH ALVERDES. Leipzig: C. L. Hirschfeld, 1925. Band I. Pp. viii+152. M. 8. The revival of sociology in Germany is witnessing the publication of a number of important sociological studies. Among these is the Tiersoziologie of Dr. Alverdes, a professor in the University of Halle. The volume is one of a series of "Studies in Social Psychology and Sociology," edited by Dr. Richard Thurnwald of the University of Berlin. Dr. Alverdes points out in his Preface that animal sociology is very important for human sociology, since many social phenomena which seem distinctively human are found by comparative study to be typically "group-psychological." Dr. Alverdes establishes the existence of collective psychic processes below the human level, and bases his work upon this fact. The book is a painstaking review of all the facts of group behavior among the animals below man, though this first volume is cen tered especially upon behavior connected with the reproductive process. Very rightly Dr. Alverdes insists that even among the brutes group behavior is something more and often something quite different from individual behavior. Many American students of animal behavior would doubtless criticize Dr. Alverdes for using terms implying consciousness in his description of the behavior of animal groups, and it is certainly regrettable that he seldom cites the work of American students of animal behavior. CHARLES A. ELLWOOD UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI Les Cadres Sociaux de la Mémoire. By MAURICE HALBWACHS. Paris: Librairie Félix Alcan, 1925. Pp. xii+404. Paper, 25 francs. In The Social Framework of Memory, Professor Halbwachs of the University of Strasbourg has written a very significant contribution to the literature of psycho-sociological theory. The study is in the Durkheim tradition; indeed it is published as an addition to the series "Travaux de L'Année Sociologique" which was founded by Durkheim himself; and there is in the author's basic thesis an evident logical relation to Durkheim's treatment of "collective representation" in his Elementary Forms of the Religious Consciousness. A translation of the more significant passages from the author's Preface will serve, better than any summary the present reviewer could make in his own words, to give an idea of the fundamental line of reasoning. This Preface opens with the brief recital of the unauthenticated report in an old magazine of the case of a young girl found wandering in the forest in 1731. She was unable to give any account of where she had come from, but from fragmentary details supplied by her, the persons who found her concluded that she had been born in the far north and had reached France by certain definite stages. This hypothesis was tested, the account runs, by showing her pictures of ships and of objects from the regions where she was supposed to have lived in the course of her journeyings. These pictures she professed to be able to recognize, and they aided her to recall other details of her experience. The author states that the accuracy of the story is not important for his purposes; it serves very well in any event to represent many more or less similar cases, and illustrates in a simple way the fundamental thesis he wishes to develop. From this point we quote, with omissions for the sake of brevity: The child has quitted one society and passed into another. It seems that, as a result of that experience, she has lost the ability to recall in the second environment all that which she has done, all that which has impressed her, and which she would have recalled with little effort, in the first. In order to cause some incomplete and uncertain memories to reappear, it is necessary, in the society where she now is, to show her pictures which will reconstitute approximately for her, for the moment, the group and the environment from which she has been torn. This example is only an isolated case. But if we investigate carefully the nature of our remembering, we shall see that, without doubt, the greater part of our recollections return to us when our parents, our friends, or other persons recall them to us. . . It is in this sense that there exists a collective memory and a social framework of the memory (des cadres sociaux de la memoire), and it is in the measure that our individual consciousness is replaced in this framework and participates in that memory that it is capable of recalling the past. The reader will be able to understand why our study opens with one and even two chapters devoted to the dream, if he considers that the man who is asleep finds himself for some time in a state of isolation which resembles, in part at least, that in which he would live if he were not in contact and rapport with any society. At that time (when asleep) he is no longer able, nor does he need, to make use of the framework of the collective memory, and it is possible to measure the action of this framework in observing what becomes of the individual's memory when that action is not taking place. . . If the past reappears, it makes little difference to know whether it reappears in my consciousness, or in the consciousness of others. Could it reappear, if it were not preserved? . . . . That which we have called the social framework of memory would be only the result, the sum, the combination of the individual memories of the many members of one and the same society. It would serve, perhaps, to classify them better after they appear, to place the memories of some by reference to those of others. But this would not explain memory as such, since it presupposes it. The study of dreams has already furnished us with very weighty arguments against the thesis that memories subsist in the unconscious. But it is necessary to show that outside of dreams the past, in fact, does not reappear as such, that everything seems to indicate that it is not preserved, but that one reconstructs it by taking his departure from the present. It is necessary to show, furthermore, that the social framework of memory is not constructed a posteriori by the combination of individual memories, and that it is not simply an empty framework in which the memories, coming from without, insert themselves, but that it is on the contrary the instrument of which the collective memory makes use in order to reconstruct an image of the past which is in accord in any epoch with the social ideas which are then dominant. For this demonstration we have used the third and fourth chapters of this book, which deal with the reconstruction of the past and the localization of memories. Following that study, which is largely critical, but in which we have nevertheless laid the foundations of a sociological theory of memory, there remains the task of depicting directly and in itself the collective memory. Indeed it would not be sufficient to show that individuals, when they remember, always make use of the social framework. It is necessary to place oneself at the point of view of the group or groups. The two problems, furthermore, are not only interrelated, but are one and the same. One can say equally well either that the individual remembers by placing himself at the viewpoint of the group, or that the group memory realizes and manifests itself in the memories of individuals. That is why, in the last three chapters, we have dealt with the collective memory, or the traditions of the family, of religious groups, and of social classes. Certainly there are other types of societies, and other forms of social memory. But, confined by space limits, we have held to those which seemed to us most important, also to those which our previous researches have permitted us to handle most effectively. American sociologists will find a great deal in the book that is reminiscent of the emphasis upon culture that has long been prevalent in this country, but Professor Halbwachs has evolved a novel point of view and method of approach which merit careful consideration. Students of general sociological theory and methodology will be interested in this study, not only for its own sake, but as a fresh indication of one important trend in French sociological thought, with which our own workers do not appear to have maintained as close contact as would be profitable. FLOYD N. HOUSE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO Our Rural Heritage: The Social Psychology of Rural Development. By JAMES MICKEL WILLIAMS. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1925. Pp. xvii+246. $5.00. As stated by the author, "The aim of this study is to delineate the attitudes and beliefs of the early rural population"; to which might well be added the phrase "of central New York." It is largely based on the author's An American Town, published privately in 1906 and now out of print, and the student should read the latter if obtainable.1 To my mind An American Town is in many respects the best sociological study of an American rural community, and it is to be regretted that the author 1 Published as a doctor's dissertation from Columbia University, and to be found in university libraries having files of the Columbia University dissertations. |