REVIEWS 337 



of Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and Southern Brazil, but most American 

 Indians are saturated with white blood. There seems to be little or no 

 danger from them, racially. The danger is that their lands may become 

 settled by Chinese or Japanese coolies. 



In the second part of the book the author shows how for four hundred 

 years — up to the beginning of this century, indeed — the expansion of the 

 White world has been going on. The Russo-Japanese War marked the 

 beginning of the ebb, while the late War, a veritable White civil war, which 

 Mr. Stoddard compares with the Peloponnesian War, has weakened Europe 

 to such an extent that only strong measures can save her civilisation from 

 obhvion. 



The author divides the White defences against the coloured tide into 

 what he terms the " outer " and the " inner " dikes. He is of the opinion 

 that White control of Asia should be abandoned, as he thinks that, once the 

 nationalist aspirations of India and the rest of Brown Asia are satisfied, all 

 fear of a Brown- Yellow alliance would be at an end. On the other hand, he 

 considers that the retention of Africa and tropical America is absolutely 

 vital to the White races. 



C. Ross. 



Hindu Achievement in Exact Science. A Study in the History of Scientific 

 Development. By Benoy Kumar Sarkar. [Pp. xiii-!-82.] (Lon- 

 don : Longmans, Green & Co., 1918. Price 55. net.) 



Whatever the actual Hindu achievement in exact science may have been, 

 this book is not one of them. It has recently been severely handled in an 

 American mathematical magazine — with which we quite concur. Apparently 

 the author thinks that mere mention of a subject in ancient history proves 

 that the person who has mentioned it discovered all about it. For example, 

 we doubt much whether Bhaskar-Charva anticipated Newton by over 

 five hundred years in the discovery of the principles of the differential cal- 

 culus and Newton's application to astronomical problems and complications. 

 A statement like this could only be proved by giving very detailed quotations 

 from that pundit's work, which the author does not attempt to do. We do 

 not mean to imply that the Hindus discovered nothing in mathematics : 

 perhaps they did ; but a very judicious and critical inquiry is necessary 

 before all their claims can be admitted. 



We see that, in the June number of Discovery, Mr. Ikbal All Shah would 

 have us believe that the ancient Indians were able to make and use flying 

 machines, simply on the strength of a few vague quotations from ancient 

 writings. We would suggest that these allusions were rather flights of 

 poetical fancy than anything else — akin to the flying carpet in the Arabian 

 Nights, and to the achievements of Daedalus and his Icarus. In short, 

 this book and the article referred to show, to our mind, a considerable 

 deficiency of the power of accurate scientific judgment, which requires 

 practical evidence in the first place. 



O. A. Craggs. 



The End of the World. By Joseph McCabe. [Pp. vii 4- 267, with 

 numerous illustrations.] (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1920, 

 Price 6s. net.) 



The subject-matter of this volume is wider than is suggested by the title. 

 The author's main purpose is to discuss the evidence which modem astronomy 

 can bring to bear upon the ultimate end of a star, or in particular of the 

 earth. This question is intimately bound up with theories of stellar evolu- 

 tion and of stellar cosmogony in general. The author, therefore, brings 

 under review many recent discoveries and theories, and introduces his readers 



