The author has kept clear of any controverted aspect of the subject and thereby has accomplished a task in systematization that has not been attempted by any other writer in this country.

CAROL ARONOVICI

BELVEDERE, CAL.

Bolshevism at Work. By WILLIAM T. GOODE. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920. Pp. 143.

An interesting inside view of the processes of life, labor, and education in Bolshevist Russia.

The Political Philosophy of Robert M. La Follette. Compiled by ELLEN TORELLE. Madison, Wis.: The Robert M. La Follete Co., 1920. Pp. 426.

Short extracts from the public addresses and writings of La Follette. They throw an interesting side light on the Progressive movement in American politics from 1900 to 1920.

Essays on Vocation. Edited by BASIL MATTHEWS. London: Oxford University Press, 1919. Pp. 128.

A stimulating and helpful series of essays by English scholars, intended to point the way to various vocations in post-war Britain. The Community Health Problem. By ATHEL C. BURNHAM. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1920. Pp. 149.

A scientific survey of the public-health movement in the United States. Contains valuable vital statistics.

Labor's Crisis. An Employer's View of Labor Problems. By SIGMUND MENDELSOHN. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1920. Pp. xii+171. $1.50.

Interesting as revealing the attitudes of a type of employer emerging in the present labor struggle in the United States.

Labor in Politics, or Class versus Country. By CHARLES NORMAN FAY. Privately printed. Cambridge, Mass.: The University Press, 1920. Pp. xii+284.

Reveals the attitudes of a representative of capitalism. Also contains valuable statistics of the labor movement in America.

A Living Wage. Its Ethical and Economic Aspects. By JOHN A. RYAN. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1920. Pp. ix+182. $2.00.

Revised and abridged edition of Ryan's larger book of the same title. Interesting as revealing the most recent official attitudes of the Catholic church upon the problems of capital and labor.

The Opium Monopoly. By ELLEN N. LA MOTTE. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1920. Pp. xvii+84. $1.00.

A brief statement of the main facts of the opium traffic as fostered and developed under British colonial policy. Contains tables of statistics concerning the traffic compiled from the most recent official records of the colonies concerned.

The Industrial Republic. By PAUL W. LITCHFIELD. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1920. Pp. 95. $1.00.

A brief description of the co-operative plan recently introduced by the Goodyear Rubber Company into the operation of their plant at Akron, Ohio.

Modern Germany. Its Rise, Growth, Downfall, and Future. By J. ELLIS BARKER. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1919. Pp. ix+496. $6.00.

A new and enlarged edition of the author's Modern Germany with much new material based on post-war conditions and situations.

Italy and the World War. By THOMAS NELSON PAGE. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1920. Pp. xii+422. $5.00.

A historical review of the diplomatic relations of modern Italy. Valuable as revealing the diplomatic attitudes of many European nations.

The New World Order. By FREDERICK CHARLES HICKS. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1920. Pp. viii+496.

A critical discussion of the problems of world-organization, cooperation, and order following the world-war. Pertinent analyses of the Versailles treaties and the League of Nations. Appendices contain valuable excerpts from the various recent post-war treaties.

Sex and Sex Worship; A Scientific Treatise on Sex, Its Nature and Function, and Its Influence on Art, Science, Architecture, and Religion-with Special Reference to Sex Worship and Symbolism. By O. A. WALL, M.D., PH.G., PH.M. St. Louis: C. V. Mosby Co., 1919. Pp. xv+607. $7.50.

This book is written by an old gentleman who read a great many books on religion and sex. Unfortunately he lost his notes. The book represents what he remembers of his reading. It is a large book, handsomely bound and well printed, but, in spite of its title, it is not scientific. ROBERT E. PARK

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Pool, Billiards and Bowling Alleys as a Phase of Commercialized Amusements in Toledo, Ohio. By REV. JOHN J. PHELAN, M.A. Toledo: Little Book Press, 1919. Pp. 292. $2.00.

This is an essay on commercialized amusements based on a survey of the pool rooms in Toledo. It contains, in addition to the facts gathered in Toledo, a copy of the schedule used in the survey, a questionnaire for high schools, a digest of Ohio laws as to minors, and of the Ohio laws concerning recreation, the pool-room ordinances of sixty-two cities, a reproduction of the social and industrial creeds of the churches, and a portrait of the author. It is a useful book but its tone is hortatory.

ROBERT E. PARK

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Letters to a Young Man on Love and Health. By WALTER M. GALLICHAN. New York: F. A. Stokes Co., 1920. Pp. 119. $1.00.

An excellent handbook in sex education for young men. The twelve letters are refreshingly frank, direct, and complete, as might be expected from the author of The Psychology of Marriage.

RECENT LITERATURE

NOTES AND ABSTRACTS

A Theory of History.-Historical theories of history are nearly as numerous as historians. Paradoxically, their historicity lies almost wholly in the fact that they are facts of record. So far as intellectual content goes they are philosophy rather than history and the outstanding ones have been evolved by philosophers, not brought forth by historians. History primarily is factual detail and altogether concrete. Secondarily, it ventures timorously upon generalizations. It depicts "situations," "general aspects," and "trends." In so doing it becomes in modest measure philosophy or sociology. From Plato to Comte and from Comte to the Adams brothers one encounters five distinct type groups of theories of history. The first group comprises the predestinal philosophies of the metaphysicians, the logicians, and others. In the second group fall the philosophies of social self-determination. A third group of interpretations goes back to the geographical or "environmental" influence. The writings of Montesquieu remain the classical example, but the researches of Ellen C. Semple and Ellsworth Huntington are of a more substantial value. Theories of the fourth group explain history in the terms of heritage. Heritage is the total product of human activity hitherto which we now enjoy. It includes our acquired habits, our arts, our knowledge, and our property. The working hypotheses which make up the fifth group of philosophies of history account for the stream of human experience as the solar system or a thunderstorm is accounted for, as a case of equilibration. Herbert Spencer and Brooks Adams resolve it into a degradation of physical energy. Individual biologists and bio-anthropologists see history as heredity and natural selection. Taking physics and biology both for granted, the author defends the thesis that human history is a psychological or behavioristic equilibration. The premise from which the argument proceeds is that men are not born equal. Behavioristic reaction to stimulation, whether it is instinctive or rational reaction, is more adaptive and vigorous on the part of some aggregations of men than it is on the part of other aggregations. The practical activities of more vigorous groups and classes overflow into those of more sluggish groups and classes. History is adventure and the urge to adventure is the cause of history.-Franklin H. Giddings, Political Science Quarterly, December, 1920. O. B. Y.

Sociology: Its Nature and Scope, Aims and Methods.—(1) Sociology is the science of society in which the interactions of human beings are expressed through physical bodies and have relation to physical surroundings. Sociology is one of the mental and moral sciences, as the Germans say Geisteswissenschaften, sciences of the mind. Human society is essentially living, subject to growth and decay, and its scientific consideration will pay particular attention to the genetic features. Though sociology is based on a survey of social facts, it is almost equally concerned with ideals. (2) The chief subject-matter of sociology is social organism as wholes functioning wholes. It will be well to distinguish in sociology an empirical, a philosophical, and a practical part. The empirical study may concern itself first with a survey of present social facts based on analytic methods. With the consideration of historical social life the genetic character predominates. The material and conclusions need the comparative study of social systems and ideals as they exist at the present time or have existed in the course of history. The comparative study depends for its material on the analytic and the genetic studies of social facts. This leads to the critical consideration of the facts assembled in comparative study of social systems. From the outset of such criticism a constructive conception is almost inevitably implied, even though only tentatively accepted. (3) The aim of sociology is to make clear the nature of social ideals and forces and the conditions in which these are related.

Sociology aims at the scientific co-ordination of social facts. (4) The methods appropriate in sociology are analytic, genetic, comparative, critical, and synthetic. They are psychological and historical, empirical and philosophical.—Alban G. Widgery, The Indian Journal of Sociology, January, 1920.

C. N.

The Character of Primitive Human Progress.-The most remarkable thing among natural processes is the unfolding of the intellect and moral nature of man. Since his emergence from the animal state he has possessed powers comparable to those which he now manifests. In the earliest stages the individual man or the small group had to approach the problems of life and environment without any effective tradition to guide or sympathetic collaboration with others to inspire. This called for a measure of independence unlike anything manifested by individuals today except in the labors of men of dominating genius. The first fundamental step forward in the control of nature, whether taken by the individual or the collective mind, was the most novel mental event occurring after the appearance of life in the process of evolution. Man's environment, both that which he has found in the external world and that which he himself has created, has served to release the powers inherent in his nature. The external world has no power in itself by which it can project a force from itself into the mind of man and create there a new character. There is no reason to suppose that the release of man's energies was sudden, like that of a coiled spring; it is far more probable that the process was a gradual one. And now it is more probable that the race is still in its infancy than that it has come to old age. In our present state the greatest inspiration to an intellectual life, and hence to an increase of power, comes from the interactions of mind with mind. To the development of language, the prime means of the communication of mind with mind, has been given the honor of initiating the marvelous release of the powers of man. Language was a product of the collective rather than of the individual mind. In view of this first magnificent creation of the primitive mind, we cannot refuse to recognize that early man possessed powers which do not suffer in comparison with those manifested today.-R. D. Carmichael, Scientific Monthly, January, 1921. K. E. B.

The Problem of the American Negro.—The degree of variability of physical and mental qualities in each race is very great. In every population we find persons who are stupid and intelligent, weak and strong, moral and immoral. But when we turn to racial types that are fundamentally distinct the biological question seems simpler. Such traits of the negro as the pigmentation of the skin, the form of the hair, the nose, etc., are so characteristic that they are not duplicated among the whites. Yet we cannot follow out the racial differences in the same detail in regard to internal organs. It has been pointed out that the liver, the spleen, and the brain of the negro are on the average smaller than those of the white. Whether or not there is a difference in the number of cells and connective fibers in the brains of the two races is an open question. The problem of heredity is also connected with the negro problem. The army tests have indicated the negro to be inferior to the white and that northern negroes were very much superior to southern negroes. But when we keep in mind the abject fear of southern negroes under the white officer and the limitations of early childhood and of general upbringing of the negroes in the South, we will decline to accept these mental tests as a convincing proof of the hereditary inferiority of the negro race. On the contrary, the highly developed native arts, weaving, carving, pottery, metal casting, etc., done by the black races in Africa, give a proof of the negro's mental ability. The same biological inferiority also is ascribed to the mulattoes who are almost all descended from white fathers and negro mothers. Besides biological and psychological justifications for the inferiority of the negro race there is the social basis of the race prejudice which is founded on the tendency to emerge the individual in the class to which he belongs, and to ascribe to him all the characteristics of his class. The consciousness that the negro belongs to a class by himself is kept alive by the contrast presented by his physical appearance with that of the whites. Intermixture of blood will decrease the contrast between the extreme racial forms and this will lead to a lessening of the consciousness of race distinction. The negro problem will not disappear in America until the negro blood has been so much diluted that it will no longer