REVIEWS 



GENERAL 



Discovery; or The Spirit and Service of Science. By R. A. Gregory. 

 [Pp. viii + 340, with 8 Plates.] (London : Macmillan & Co., 1916. Price 

 5-y. net.) 



It is seldom that a book becomes a classic between the date of issue and the 

 date of review. This has happened with Prof. Gregory's really fine book on 

 Discovery. Every one interested in science appears to have studied it already, 

 and a long review has therefore now become unnecessary ; and we must express 

 only our apologies to the author for not having reviewed it before. Of all the 

 histories every written, those of scientific discoveries are and should be both the 

 most useful and the most interesting. They deal with the great labours of the 

 greatest minds — which generally achieve successes that are of perennial benefit to 

 the whole of humanity without causing sorrow to any one. How different from the 

 sordid struggles between nations, the mean machinations of potentates, and the 

 selfish pretences of politicians, which, forced into the minds of the young under 

 the name of history and " the humanities," create in them the false ideals that 

 cause constant and barren strife and that lead to devastating wars and the 

 misery of millions. Prof. Gregory's book is a brief survey of this true history of 

 mankind — and it is extraordinary that more works of the kind should not have 

 been brought out before. But of course it is only a survey, because a full record 

 would occupy many volumes. The title of the book and the name of the author 

 will by themselves suffice for a review. 



R. R. 



Fundamental Sources of Efficiency. By Fletcher Durell, Ph.D. [Pp.368.] 

 (Philadelphia and London : J. B. Lippincott Company, 1914. Price 10s. 6d. 

 net.) 



We are all busily trying to work as efficiently as possible. Writings like Miinster- 

 burg's Industrial Efficiency discuss the most effective methods of securing specific 

 aims in business and trade. In war, in teaching, in commerce, in industry, in 

 social amelioration, in thinking itself, methods are overhauled, tested, criticised, 

 and discussed. In the work under review, Dr. Fletcher Durell endeavours to 

 outline a complete Science, or Philosophy, of efficiency. 



The word " sources " tends to prepare a surprise for the reader. He is ready 

 for the "few elemental principles," but hardly, perhaps, for the very numerous 

 " forms and sources of efficiency " that the work is " an attempt to analyse " into 

 their elements. The book is an extensive classification of the ways in which 

 results are achieved or by which they arrive, and an attempt to penetrate through 

 them to the essential factors of efficiency. The survey is very ample, for it 

 includes in its infinite variety the quick handling of goods by packing them in a 

 barrel and the concept as examples of the advantageous use of "Groups"; an idea 

 in a book and its various uses by a reader as an illustration of " The Unit and its 



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