xxxn SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



region inhabited by mixed races of uncertain and puzzling origin, with strange customs and 

 habits, and, above all, with a crudely rich and elaborate style of ornamentation. It was 

 amongst the ornamental designs of those races that Professor Haddon commenced in earnest 

 a study of the life-histories of the designs found in native art, and the results of that study he 

 gave us in the form of a valuable memoir in the Cunningham Series of the Royal Irish 

 Academy. In this book the author has gone much further afield, and has written what is 

 practically an introduction to the study of decorative designs all the world over. His British 

 New Guinea researches form the nucleus of the book and give him the clue to many of his 

 deductions. The essence of his method may be said to lie in studying each design separately, 

 tracing its origin to some prototype, observing the meaning attached to it, working out its 

 life-history, noting the transmutations it undergoes, and collecting the intermediate forms of 

 the devices until he gets a series that connects the final meaningless conventionality with the 

 real and living form from which it has evolved. The material from which designs are drawn 

 gives him a basis for their classification. All designs, he finds, may be classified either under 

 zoomorphs, those derived from animal forms, or anthropomorphs, those obtained from human 

 forms, or phyllomorphs, those originating from plant forms, or physicomorphs, devices drawn 

 from the material universe, or skeuoworphs, decorations obtained from copying forms of 

 handiwork already in existence. From these sources, or a combination of them, often aided 

 by a fantastic imagination, saving perhaps some plain and geometrical designs, savage and 

 civilised people alike have drawn all their designs. 



Nearly all the life-histories of designs given by the author are convincing and of extreme 

 interest. The crocodile device, the frigate-bird, the face, the scroll, the lotus flower, the 

 fylfot, and many other designs, are well worked out and amply illustrated. It is often 

 extremely difficult, sometimes impossible, to trace designs to their birth-places, although there 

 can be no doubt that a knowledge of the fauna, the flora, and ethnology of a district is of the 

 greatest assistance in the search. The author agrees with others in thinking that many of the 

 simpler designs may have arisen independently in different quarters of the globe, such, for 

 instance, as the scroll design. 



A student of the more aesthetic side of art, however, might have some objections to offer 

 to certain parts of the book. He would object, probably, to the classification Professor Haddon 

 gives of the reasons for which objects are decorated. The reasons given are (i) for art, (2) for 

 information, (3) for wealth, and (4) for religion. Art here stands for any combination of line, 

 form, and colour, giving a pleasurable sensation. It is this pleasurable sensation that calls 

 all decorations into existence, and this is the only reason for the decoration of objects. 

 Information, wealth, and religion do preserve and keep designs and devices in existence, 

 but when designs become utilised with these significations they then cease in reality 

 to be decorations. Such a student might also carp somewhat at the title of the book ; 

 art and evolution have become words of so loose connotation that they are almost as 

 conventional and meaningless as some of the designs dealt with by the author. The 

 student of the aesthetic side of art, also, would be inclined to think that Professor Haddon 

 claims rather too much for Biology and its methods. It is quite true that designs are the 

 outcome of the living protoplasm of the human brain, but if for this reason biologists are to 

 claim art as a department of their subject, then must mathematics, physics, history, and every 

 science and art that the human mind deals with, fall to their share. Nor is there anything 

 peculiar in the methods of the biologist ; he uses his eyes, makes records, collects facts, and 

 draws deductions just as every other scientist does. But this book may be taken as a proof 

 that there is no reason why a biologist may not be a successful student of art and write a book 

 upon the subject charmingly free from all self-seeking, and making full and open acknowledg- 

 ment of the debt he owes to the observations and conclusions of men that have already worked 

 at this subject. 



