68 NATURAL SCIENCE. j ULV , 



ethics, give evidence of thoughtfulness, wide reading, and that 

 intimate acquaintance with human nature characteristic of the wise 

 physician. He has produced a philosophical, up-to-date manual of 

 the " Pursuit of Happiness," which, according to the American 

 Declaration of Independence, is one of the inalienable rights of man. 

 If there is no infallible guide-book to happiness, we may at least 

 learn from this one how to avoid that morbid physiological condition 

 which has been termed the disease of the century — Ennui. 



In Dr. Brinton's opinion, " Our happiest moments are those in 

 which we believe we can realise our ideals," but it has been well-said 

 by his fellow-countryman, Lowell, "Woe to that man, or that nation, 

 to whom mediocrity has become an ideal." 



Agnes Crane. 



The Evolution of Decorative Art. By Henry Balfour, M.A., F.Z.S., Curator 

 of the Ethnographical Department (Pitt Rivers Collection), University Museum, 

 Oxford. London : Percival & Co., 1893. Price 4s. 6d. 



It is appropriate that this interesting little volume should come from 

 the Pitt Rivers Curator, for, until General Pitt Rivers designedly 

 studied the art of modern primitive races of mankind, any connected 

 theory of the beginnings of design and decoration was an impossibility. 

 Mr. Balfour has kept closely to General Pitt Rivers' original idea — 

 that of studying the decorative art of the most primitive people now 

 in existence, believing that the methods employed by man in all ages 

 in reaching at conventional design from simple imitation of natural 

 objects have been very much the same. Mr. Balfour's close study of 

 the Pitt Rivers collection since it came to Oxford has enabled him 

 to get much more definite and exact evidence of this process. Shortly 

 speaking, there are two leading methods in the process. Everyone 

 who was not born since the age of typewriters has dropped a blot of 

 ink on his paper, and has found himself elaborating the stain into 

 some fantastic form. So primitive man, finding a knot in the blade 

 of his paddle, has stained and shaped it into a pattern, and has repro- 

 duced the pattern more or less rudely along the face of the blade ; or, 

 having trimmed the bamboo shaft of his spear, his eye has been caught 

 by the regular pattern formed where the leaves are cut off at the nodes, 

 and he has coloured the markings and the fringe-like scratches made 

 where they cut off the blades. The transition from this to pure 

 ornament comes when the decorative knots or node markings are 

 reproduced upon a blade or stick where their natural origin does not 

 exist. The second method is also familiar. We have all heard of 

 the game called " Russian Scandal," where a simple statement or story, 

 whispered through a chain of persons, appears in utterly unrecog- 

 nisable shape when the version of the last person is compared with 

 the original. The author has given two most interesting and amusing 

 illustrations in which this little game was played by successive 

 persons, each copying his predecessor's version of an original sketch. 

 So among savage people, some unclad Raphael imitates the human 

 figure on a weapon or a gourd, and future weapon-makers copy his 

 representation of the natural object, until, from a possibly successful 

 picture, a pattern apparently purely geometrical is produced. We have 

 chosen two typical illustrations of the way in which the author deals 

 with his materials, but the book is so short and so readable that it 

 would be unfair, by prolonging this account, to give any reader the 

 slightest excuse for refraining from the book itself. 



