REVIEWS 



studies in the History and Method o£ Science. Edited by Charles Singer. 

 [Pp. xiv + 560, with 55 plates and 104 illustrations in the text.] 

 (Oxford : at the Clarendon Press, 1921. Price -f^^z 8s. net.) 



The first volume of Wvqzq Studies appeared in 1917. It has taken nearly four 

 years for the second volume to make its appearance. Future volumes will 

 no doubt be issued at shorter intervals. In the meantime the new volume 

 ofiers ample compensation. It is almost three times the size of the first 

 volume, and superior in quality as well as in quantity. If the first volume 

 was sold out so quickly, the present volume should be out of print long before 

 the year is out. 



Let it be said at once that the present Studies constitute a very substantial 

 addition to our knowledge of the history of science. There are fifteen essays 

 in the volume, nearly all of them by experts in their several subjects. The 

 range of subjects is wide, and the numerous plates and illustrations are at 

 once illuminating and delightful. Dr. Singer and his colleagues are to be 

 congratulated on the result ; and the Clarendon Press, too, deserves more 

 than a word of thanks for its share in producing such a thing of beauty. 



In a professedly periodic volume like the one under review it is not 

 always possible to do even justice to all the sciences or to all the centuries. 

 Each volume is likely to give special prominence to some subject or period 

 at the expense of other subjects or periods. It must be left to the series as 

 a whole, or at least in the long run, to redress the balance. The first volume 

 gave special prominence to medieval studies. The present volume shows a 

 more even distribution as regards time, but it gives special prominence to 

 certain subjects, namely, biological studies, to which about half the volume 

 is devoted. This should be a special attraction for biologists, without dis- 

 couraging others, for even the biological essays contain much that is of 

 general scientific interest, while other essays are devoted to other sciences, 

 or to problems on the borderland of science. 



The biological essays relate almost to all the ages since the beginning of 

 science. Dr. Singer leads off with Greek Biology and its Relation to the 

 Rise of Modern Biology. This essay of about a hundred pages is quite a 

 treatise in itself. It describes in some detail the biological work of Aristotle 

 and Theophrastus, and their influence down to the eighteenth century or even 

 later. Even if one does not altogether subscribe to his general reflections 

 on Greek Science, and regrets his omission of any reference to the more 

 philosophical aspects of Aristotelian biology, there can be no doubt that Dr. 

 Singer deserves the warm thanks of all who are interested in the early history 

 of science in general and of biology in particular. Dr. Singer's account of 

 Aristotle is supplemented, in another essay, by Prof. Piatt, who throws new 

 light on Aristotle's conception of the structure and function of the heart, 

 and incidentally clears up some obscure passages which have been the despair 

 of translators and commentators of Aristotle's works. Early Greek medicine 

 is described, in an interesting manner, by Mr. E. T. Withington, in an essay 

 on " The Asclepiadae and the Priests of Asclepius." Mr. F. C. Conybeare 



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