gang is said to teach the spirit of democracy, loyalty, and co-operation through group activity. The problem before the parent and teacher is shown to be not that of stifling the gang instinct, or of attempting to direct boy life by ignoring it, but rather that of satisfying the instinct in such manner as always to make the gang serve a useful end. ROY WILLIAM FOLEY THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO L'Egoïsme humain. Par A. LUGAN. Paris: A. Tralin, éditeur. Pp. ix+167. Written by a missionary priest, this book is devoted primarily to a criticism of selfishness, in the individual, in the family, and in society at large, for both individual and collective ends. The discussion is distinctly from the ethical standpoint of Christian individualism rather than from the causal viewpoint of the social psychologist. There is much admonition as well as condemnation of types and attitudes, but little analysis of social causes and effects. A number of social types and subjects of general interest-such as the confirmed bachelor, the fashion-loving daughter, the demagogic politician, match-making and self-sacrificing mothers, the caste system, class consciousness, and syndicalism are discussed, and some of the descriptions are very pertinent, but too frequently the author allows his opinions to be colored by his preconceptions. The book is best adapted to the edification of the communicant. UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA L. L. BERNARD Genossenschaftsleben der Säugetiere. Eine psycho-biologische Studie über die Beziehungen der Säugetiere zu ihren Artgenossen. Von DR. PHIL. ALEXANDER SOKOLOWSKY. Leipzig: Weigel, 1910. Pp. 148, 6 plates. The title of this work looks most promising to anyone interested in the social life of the higher animals. One's expectations are further raised by the statement that the author is "Zoologischer Assistent in C. Hagenbecks Tierpark." But the contents of the book are disappointing. It is not a work of original observation, but a compilation, a brief, popular natural history, without references to sources, and its statements are not always reliable. The six colored plates are artistic, but without scientific value. WALLACE CRAIG MAINE STATE COLLEGE Les foyers nouveaux. Par DR. REMY COLLIN. Paris: Bloud et Cie, 1912. Pp. viii+176. A physician of Nancy, an enthusiast in the movement to secure dwellings for working people in which they can bring up families under wholesome physical and moral conditions, describes the French cooperative building societies and furnishes the most recent statistics of their progress. His argument is that these co-operative societies have a high social value because they are adapted to the beliefs and sentiments of the people, they satisfy the desire for individual property, they provide for large families, and their separate houses are best for health and morality. He tells of the obstacles encountered, appeals to employers to subsidize the associations and aid them with counsel, and urges government to promote the movement by loans from the national savings funds. C. R. HENDERSON Die Irrthümer der Strafjustiz und ihre Ursachen. Von DR. ERICH SELLO. Erster Band: Todesstrafe und lebenslängliches Zuchthaus in sichterlichen Fehlsprüchen neuerer Zeit. Berlin: Decker's Verlag, 1911. Pp. 523. This large volume is the fruit of laborious examination and reproduction of cases when courts have made mistakes and where the life of the accused was at stake. It would seem unnecessary to prove that judges are human and therefore fallible if many of them and their flatterers had not set up for themselves exemption from such infirmities. Indeed no sensible man expects of courts entire freedom from error. If there is a high degree of fairness, patience, and learning it is all the public has a right to ask. But just because we must look for no more than the highest degree of probability we should abolish irreparable penalties, like mutilation and capital punishment, and we should provide indemnities for persons manifestly the victims of public injustice. The vast collection of facts here presented ought to have consideration by those who think, or act as though they believed that courts can do no wrong, that the public agent is always right. C. R. HENDERSON La protection des faibles. Par GEORGES ROUDEL. Paris: Dorin et Fils, 1912. Pp. 291. The General Secretary of the International Bureau of Public and Private Relief, inspector for the French Government, has published the essential facts relating to the French system of charity. His name is a pledge of accuracy. The plan of the work is interesting: (1) before the struggle; (2) during the struggle; (3) after the struggle. In the first part dependent children and youth are discussed; in the second, methods of aiding adults at home, or by work, or by special ministrations. In the third part attention is directed upon relief for old and incurable people, pensions, and asylums. A good bibliography is provided. While the descriptive matter is confined to French agencies and methods, the author penetrates beneath the variegated colors of local circumstances to the principles implied in practice, and his book becomes valuable to students of the subject in all lands. C. R. HENDERSON Mouth Hygiene. By JOHN SAYRE MARSHALL, M.D., Sc.D. J. B. Lippincott Co., 1912. Pp. 262. Now that the gateway to the digestive apparatus has become a fashionable "social problem," and school authorities, parents, and institutional charities have condescended to look into the mouth, we have discovered the need of a book which is at once authoritative and intelligible. An eminent representative of oral medicine and surgery has met this need in an admirable way. C. R. HENDERSON The Present Day Problem of Crime. By ALBERT H. CURRIER. Boston: Richard G. Badger, 1912. After a brief discussion of the problem of crime, a century of progress in prison reform and the reforms demanded, the author gives sections to the saving power of philanthropy, and a sketch of the career of the Earl of Shaftesbury. C. R. HENDERSON List of Works Relating to Criminology. New York Public Library, 1911. Pp. 362. Students of criminology will hail the appearance of this immense collection of references with gratitude. The citations are not merely of books but also of articles in magazines in various languages. It is at once a catalogue by authors and by subjects, carefully analyzed. C. R. HENDERSON RECENT LITERATURE NOTES AND ABSTRACTS Volkskraft und Sozialpolitik.—The social-political and economic reforms in Germany of the past generation were the outcome not of scientific study but of popular sympathy with the lower classes; that is true of such statesmen as Bismarck and of the economists Brentano, Wagner, and Schmoller. The prevailing reformers aim to influence the distribution of wealth in the interest of the weaker element in society, but to do so by controlling the wage system, not by removing it. The recent health exhibit in Dresden illustrates the need of thoroughgoing investigations of the housing, food, clothing, and working conditions.-Richard Ehrenberg, Archiv für exakte Wirtschaftsforschung, Heft 2, 1912. Y. S. Der Mensch.-G. Sergi, the Italian anthropologist, has arrived at important conclusions as to the habitat and characteristics of the primitive race of man. The older theory of the Asiatic origin of the European Aryan race is discredited by Sergi; furthermore he sets up the hypothesis of the African origin of the dolichocephalic European; the European race is a species of the Notanthropos genus whose original habitat was central Africa. There is a close relationship between the short, dark Mediterranean and the blond, northern Baltic types, showing one origin for both. Another theory in contradiction to the current one is that the dark, dolichocephalic Aryan type of Asia and India had its origin in Europe. Sergi's classification of races, which establishes the polygenetic origin of man, could be modified without violation of the facts by making the European (Neanderthal) species distinct from the Homo afer (Negro) species.-H. A. Wieth-Knudsen, Archiv für Rassen- und GesellschaftsBiologie, March and April, 1912. Y. S. Das französische Gesetz über die Altersversicherung der Arbeiter.-In passing the old-age insurance bill of April, 1910, the French government was mistaken in regard to the attitude of the working classes toward the act. It was expected that ten million would avail themselves of this legislation, but only about one-fourth that number have been insured. Although the bill made the insurance of all employees obligatory, the government cannot enforce the measure since the court held that the employer could not deduct the employee's share from the wages without consent. The features of the bill which were distasteful to the socialists were that the age at which benefits were paid was fixed at sixty-five years, which was already a reduction of five years as compared with the English, Belgium, and German laws, and that the employees were compelled to pay a share toward the fund. To meet the desires of the people, the age limit has been reduced to sixty years, and the government has increased its quota to the fund from sixty francs to one hundred francs per capita.-Charles Gide, Zeitschrift für Volkswirtschaft, Sozialpolitik und Verwaltung, Heft 2, 1912. Y. S. Die deutsche wirtschaftsgeschichtliche Literatur und der Ursprung des Marxismus.-The economic interpretation of history had its origin in a series of German writers before Marx's Manifesto of 1848. The historical, juristic, and Romanticist literature of the first half of the nineteenth century contains views similar to those found in Marx and Engels. Among those writers is Georg von Raumer, who expresses clearly the economic interpretation. It is difficult to estimate Marx's indebtedness to this rich German literature. Although critics have shown the influence on Marx of French and English works, no attention has been paid to this historical German literature, with the exception of Hegel and Lorenz von Stein. Irrespective of its influence on Marx, it is noteworthy that the economic interpretation of history originated not with Marx, as is generally held, but with a number of German historians and economists.-G. v. Below, Jahrbuch für Nationalökonomie und Statistik, May, 1912. Y. S. Wieviel Menschen kann die Erde ernähren?-The question of how many people the earth could support depends on the extent of the available area of cultivation and the standards of life of the people. Only about fifty-six million square kilometers -a little less than one-half the total area of the six continents--are capable of cultivation. The standards of life are not uniform in the various countries; for the American standard of life about 1.2 hectars are needed per capita; this is twice as high as the German and about ten times as high as the Japanese standard. It is estimated that according to the American standard of life the earth could support a population of about 2,333 million, according to the German standard about 5,600 million, and according to the Japanese standard about 22,400 million. By more intensive cultivation and by securing new material for fertilizers it would be possible to increase the food supply.-Karl Ballod, Jahrbuch für Gesetzgebung, Verwaltung und Volkswirtschaft, Heft 2, 1912. Die Wurzeln des Syndikalismus in Frankreich.-Syndicalism in France is the outgrowth not of the French temperament, but of the undeveloped capitalistic and large-scale production. The trade unions are therefore weak and impractical organizations; their hostile attitude toward the government is inconsistent with their policy of accepting governmental subsidies in strikes; their finances are unsound because the members object to being taxed. For a long time the syndicalists refrained from strikes and elections, waiting for the ultimate revolutionary general strike. With the development of industry the party will become more practical and more like German socialists. -Gustav Eckstein, Die Neue Zeit, May 17, May 30, and June 7, 1912. Y. S. Die Entstehung der Exomagie.-Monogamy and endogamy were the earliest marriage institutions; only after the institution of exogamy did polygamy arise. The theory of Morgan and Fraser as to the exogamous marriage is untenable because it imputes a rationalist motive to primitive man; the biological theory of Atkinson and the anthropological hypothesis of Lang, also, fail to explain the origin of exogamy. The correct hypothesis is probably that of MacLennan-from the sociological phenomenon of the rape of women in war time-with the modification that the rape took place in times of peace among the members of the same tribe. After this arose polyandrous and polygynous marriages (Gruppenehe) at one and the same time. This was followed by monogamy.-W. Wundt, Archiv für Rechts- und WirtschaftsPhilosophie, January, April, and July, 1912. Y. S. Die Motive der Zunftbildung im deutschen Mittelalter.-A study of the Zunftbriefe of the twelfth century shows that the economic was the only possible motive for the formation of guilds, and that the general explanation of the motive is erroneous. With the increase in the population and in the flow of immigrants into the towns a rise in industrial competition made it necessary to prohibit outside competition and to control the sales within the town; this led to the combination of artisans. Other purposes, such as religion and sociability, are secondary.-G. v. Below, Historische Zeitschrift, Heft 1, 1912. Y. S. Die Grundlage der Ethik.-From sociology we learn that there is no universal moral principle, but that all manners and customs have at some time been regarded as moral. Morality is relative, yet the evolution of moral ideas has been along a certain line. In this progressive development of the human consciousness has appeared the principle of the unfolding of personality. The root of this principle of humanity is not material well-being, nor egoism and altruism. It springs from the aesthetic nature of man. This principle is the impelling force to action and art.-A. Eleutheropulos, Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, June, 1912. Y. S. Recent Discussions of Moral Evolution.-During the last five years the literature on moral evolution has given very important assistance in answering the questions: (1) What is the origin of the idea or feeling of moral obligation? (2) In what respects has there been evolution and what are the chief stages in the process? (3) What are the causes of moral evolution? (4) What criterion shall be used in judging the evolution ?—J. H. Tufts, Harvard Theological Review, April, 1912. E. H. S. |