September i, 1921] 



NATURE 



growth can be secured as if in a laboratory'." 

 This thesis is developed at length, and the author 

 does not confine himself to any one country-, but 

 ranges over much of the British Empire. The 

 book will be found to help the agricultural student 

 who wishes to farm in the Empire, but is not cer- 

 tain where to go or what sort of problems will 

 confront him when he begins. 



E. J. Russell. 



History and Method of Science. 

 Studies in the History and Method of Science. 

 Edited by Dr. Charles Singer. Vol. 2, 

 Pp. xxii + 559 + 55 plates. (^Oxford : At the 

 Clarendon Press, 192 1.) 485. net. 



IN recent years there has been a great develop- 

 ment in the study of history as applied to 

 science, and apart from special journals and 

 magazines dealing generally with the history of 

 science, there is a constant accession to scientific 

 literature of historical treatises, essays, and bio- 

 graphies. The present volume is the second of 

 a series the aim of which is to help the student 

 to a conception of the true place of scientific dis- 

 covery in the history of human thought, and by 

 a series of special papers to show the lines along 

 which the accumulated mass of scientific know- 

 ledge has evolved. 



The scope is wide, for the volume deals with 

 such diverse subjects as hypothesis, science and 

 metaphysics, Aristotle and the heart, medieval 

 astronomy, the scientific works of Galileo, 

 Leonardo as an anatomist, Greek biology and 

 its relation to the rise of modern biology, etc. 

 Whethef it is expedient to collect in one volume 

 subjects differing so widely in nature may be 

 open to argument. At the same time, so far as 

 we can judge, all the articles are of high merit, 

 and many of them represent the work of years or 

 even a lifetime. There must be few people 

 whose minds are so constituted or whose know- 

 ledge and interests are so great that they can 

 turn from reading " Four Armenian Tracts on 

 the Structure of the Human Body " to read with 

 relish or profit the learned article on " Archi- 

 medes' Principle of the Balance and some Criti- 

 cisms upon it " ; but the object of the editor was 

 no doubt one of instruction and an attempt to 

 keep open the wider channels of science which 

 are daily liable to silt up through the contract- 

 ing power of extreme specialism. 



Mindful of these difficulties, it would therefore 



be invidious to criticise each article. As the 



bulk of the volume applies to history in 



the natural sciences, it will appeal most strcmgly 



NO. 2705, VOL. 108] 



to biologists, and in this connection we may 

 direct attention to the interesting article by 

 E. T. Withington, " The Asclepiadae and the 

 Priests of Asclepius " ; that by the Norwegian, 

 H. Hopstock, on "Leonardo as Anatomist"; 

 and the very exact and accurate article by F. J. 

 Cole on " The History of Anatomical Injec- 

 tions." The editor. Dr. Singer, contributes the 

 longest article in the book, entitled *' Greek 

 Biology and its Relation to the Rise of Modem 

 Biology," amply, and indeed expensively, illus- 

 trated. 



Altogether, the book is a credit to all those 

 who have co-operated in its production, and con- 

 sidering its get-up as well as the price of every- 

 thing connected with printing at the present time, 

 its cost must be regarded as very reasonable, if 

 not actually cheap. W. B. 



Our Bookshelf. 



The Chemists' Year Book, 1921. Edited by 

 F. W. Atack, assisted by L. Whinyates. 

 Vol. I, pp. vi-i-422; vol. 2, pp. vii-viii + 

 423-1142. (Manchester: Sherratt and Hughes, 

 1921.) 

 The new edition of "The Chemists' Year Book" 

 has been revised in the sections on fuels and 

 illuminants, crystallography, and cellulose, while 

 the section on coal-tar has been completely re- 

 written. There are some inaccuracies to be 

 noticed in the section on "Notable Dates in the 

 History of Chemistry," but the numerical data 

 appear to have been edited carefully in accord- 

 ance with recent work. The section on acid and 

 alkali manufacture is too brief to be of much 

 value, though in some cases in which the book 

 has been tested it has shown itself superior to 

 other more ambitious works. The exact mean- 

 ing of "percentage" in density tables, for in- 

 stance, is given in cases where other compila- 

 tions are quite ambiguous. 



Pure Thought and the Riddle of the Universe. 

 By F. Sedlak. Vol. i, Creation of Heaven 

 and Earth. Pp. xv 4-375. (London: George 

 Allen and Unwin, Ltd., n.d.) i8s. net. 

 The aim of this book is praiseworthy in the 

 highest degree. Unfortunately it cannot be said 

 to achieve success. The author tells us that he 

 has already published a translation of the first 

 two volumes of Hegel's " Wissenschaf t der 

 Logik," but it had failed to arouse interest. He 

 has therefore conceived the idea, not of para- 

 phrasing it literally, but of presenting what he 

 considers and accepts as its essential meaning in 

 his own words. Where he seems to us to fail is 

 in not understanding that Hegel, so far as he 

 makes appeal to present students, does so in the 

 spirit of his thought and not in the now anti- 

 quated form of its expression. 



