ESSAY-REVIEWS 269 



and Javan species — are known only from small fragments of the 

 skeleton of one individual of each type. The skeleton of the 

 fourth species, the Neandertalers, is almost completely known 

 from the remains of numerous individuals. These Neandertalers 

 are most puzzling beings. They had receding foreheads with 

 monstrous brow-ridges, and they walked with a permanent 

 crouch, and yet they had big brains and were skilled workers in 

 stone. The anatomy of Australians shows certain slightly 

 neandertaloid features, and Sollas appears to think that this fact 

 may have some significance. But the resemblances are very 

 slight, and may well be purely fortuitous. 



Thus as we trace Homo sapiens backwards we do not find 

 him gradually merging into a different animal. On the contrary, 

 we find some glorified Bushmen and another race which is one 

 of the finest that the world has ever known. The Darwinians 

 may or may not be right in thinking that man as we know him 

 arose by imperceptibly slow progress from some sub-human 

 creature ; the indirect proofs of this theory may on may not be 

 forcible ; but of direct palaeontological evidence of such an origin 

 there is none. 



THE FATHER OP MODERN SCIENCE, by H. G. Plimmer, F.R.S. : 

 on Roger Bacon. Essays contributed by various writers on the occasion 

 of the commemoration of the seventh centenary of his birth. Collected 

 and edited by A. G. Little. [Pp. viii + 426.] (Oxford : at the 

 Clarendon Press, 1914, price 165. net.) 



On the 10th of June 1914, the seventh centenary of Roger Bacon's 

 birth was celebrated at Oxford. This commemoration seems to 

 have been only partially successful as a tribute to the neglected 

 memory of one of Oxford's very greatest sons ; for, although a 

 statue of Bacon was unveiled in the University Museum and the 

 volume named at the head of this paper was published, the fund 

 intended to be used for the publication of Bacon's works was 

 not sufficient for the purpose, and more than half of the works 

 of this great prophet of Science remain to-day unpublished. 



These commemoration essays form probably the last inter- 

 national book that will be printed for some years, for its pages 

 are written in English, French, and German by such scholars as 

 Ludwig Baur, Francois Picavet, Cardinal Gasquet, and Sir 

 John Sandys. The essays are of course unequal and there 

 seems to be but little enthusiasm of the contagious kind, except 

 18 



