5o8 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



and the general organisation of the subject in the schools, is of less interest to 

 Enghsh teachers than to Americans. Consequently other than American 

 teachers will find their chief interest in Chapters IV to VI, which are mainly- 

 concerned with the purely pedagogic aspect of the subject. It is interesting 

 to note that lack of breadth of vision is not a fault confined to English school 

 teachers of science. 



W. C. B. 



A New System of Scientific Procedure. By G. Spiller. [Pp. ix + 441, 8vo.] 

 (London : Watts & Co., 1921.) 



Mr. Spiller is known as the author of various books on psychology, education 

 and sociology. In the volume under review he attacks the problem of 

 methodology. He has evidently read extensively the literature of science 

 and scientific method — perhaps too extensively for complete assimilation — 

 and the results presented in the new work are certainly interesting and 

 likely to be profitable to those who will devote to it the necessary time and 

 thought. The literature on methodology is so scanty that a serious con- 

 tribution like Mr. Spiller's present volume is sure to be welcomed even by 

 those who cannot see eye to eye with him. 



For the most part writers on scientific method have hitherto been logicians 

 or philosophers whose interests and aims were essentially theoretical. They 

 were usually content to schematise the more usual scientific methods and 

 to point out the philosophical or logical assumptions underlying the procedure 

 of science. Mr. SpiUer does not entirely ignore the theoretical side of his 

 subject — indeed, about a third of the volume is devoted to it — but he is 

 chiefly concerned with the practical value of his exposition. Mr. Spiller is 

 rather contemptuous of logic, although his contempt is not the outcome of 

 familiarity, to judge by the curious way in which he repeatedly confounds 

 " deduction " with the " deductive method." His aim is essentially practical. 

 Like Bacon, he inclines to the belief that any normal person might become a 

 man of science by studying and following his precepts ; and, like Huxley, 

 he seems to hold that most, if not all, human ills might be remedied by 

 the aid of science and scientific methods. The bulk of the volume is taken 

 up with an exposition and illustration of thirty-five " conclusions " or articles 

 in which Mr. Spiller sums up his analysis of the procedure of science at its 

 best. In the course of his exposition of these very comprehensive thirty-five 

 articles, Mr. Spiller has the courage to refer even to the " financial and other 

 support " of men of science as an important element in the " personal 

 equation." Mr. Spiller does not seem to have overlooked any detail. If 

 anything there is perhaps too much detail in this painstaking book. The 

 danger is that it may appear to be a piece of pedantry to those who will 

 not take it seriously, while those who do take the book seriously may be 

 unduly alarmed by these overwhelming demands that seem to be made from 

 those who propose to follow the steep path of science. To some extent, 

 however, the inevitable hardness of this serious book is softened by the 

 numerous happy illustrations, drawn from science and social and political 

 life, which the learned author has included in it. 



A. Wolf. 



Early Science in Oxford. Part II, Mathematics. By R. T. Gunther. 

 [Pp. loi.] (Oxford : at the University Press, 1922. Price los. 6d, 

 net.) 



In the Companion to the Almanac for 1837, Augustus De Morgan gave a 

 summary account of English mathematicians before 1600, and pointed out 

 that the treatment of early mathematics in England in the histories of 

 mathematics, e.g. Montucla, was hopelessly inadequate. Very little has 



