October 28, 1920] 



NATURE 



275 



Essays in Social Psychology. 



(i) Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War. By 



W. Trotter. Second edition. Pp. 264. 



(London : T. Fisher Unwin, Ltd., 1919.) Price 



8s. 6d. net. 

 (2) The Century of Hope: A Sketch of Western 



Progress from 1815 to the Great War. By 



F. S. Marvin. Second edition. Pp. vii + 358. 



(Oxford: .-^t the Clarendon Press, 1919) Price 



6s. net. 

 (i) r^R. TROTTER has not changed anything 

 l_y to speak of in the body of his remark- 

 able book, which was published in 1916, but he 

 has added a postscript of much interest. It deals 

 first with the discouraging fact that "in a belli- 

 gerent country all opinion in any way connected 

 with the war is subject to prejudice, either pro- 

 national or anti-national, and is very likely in 

 consequence to be of impaired validity." The 

 manifestations of the herd-instinct in the German 

 people were in accordance with the type to be 

 seen in the predaceous social animals ; the mani- 

 festations of the same instinct in the British 

 people were of the socialised type of gregarious 

 animal — "possessing the power of evolving under 

 pressure a common purf)ose of great stability." 

 Societies in the past have failed in stability and 

 full functional effectiveness ; these defects have 

 been due to "the drift of power into the hands 

 of the stable-minded class, and to the derivation 

 of moral power and enterprise from the 

 mechanisms of leadership and class segregation." 

 To avoid this there must be a continually pro- 

 gressive absorption of the individual members of 

 the society into the general body — a movement 

 towards a complete moral homogeneity and inte- 

 gration. "The only way in which society can 

 be made safe from disruption or decay is by the 

 intervention of the conscious and instructed intel- 

 lect as a factor among the forces ruling its 

 development." But the unanswerable question is 

 whether the purposive foresight of the intellect 

 will be able, more effectively than in the past, 

 to free itself from instinctive inhibitions. 



(2) Mr. Marvin has added to his stimulating 

 book a time-chart of developments in "thought" 

 and "action" — or culture and politics — in the last 

 century, and he has made a number of improve- 

 ments in the body of the te\t. On the general 

 thesis he stands to his guns. The hopefulness 

 of the last century has not been exhausted ; on 

 the contrary, the sources of hope arc unimpaired. 

 In mechanical science and invention, biology and 

 hygiene, psychology and education, sociology and 

 statecraft, literature and religion, and in other 

 NO. 2661, VOL. 106] 



lines of development, there have been advances 

 in the past century which seem on the whole to 

 have made for the fuller realisation of the higher 

 values which the racial consciousness at its best 

 has always cherished. What Mr. Marvin's book 

 shows, it seems to us convincingly, is that the 

 momentum continues in a progressive direction. 

 There is no doubt much to discourage, but all the 

 departments of higher human activity are full of 

 live seeds of good pedigree, and in their promise 

 there is progress. 



Our Bookshelf. 



The .issessment of Physical Fitness: By Correla- 

 tion of Vital Capacity and Certain Measurements 

 of the Body. (With Tables.) By Prof. Georges 

 Dreyer, in collaboration with George Fulford 

 Hanson. Pp. xi-i-115. (London: Cassell and 

 Co., Ltd., 1920.) Price los. net. 



Although various observers had made attempts 

 to measure the respiratory capacity of the human 

 body, the real pioneer work in spirometry was 

 done about eighty years ago by John Hutchinson. 

 Hutchinson worked out the vital capacity in rela- 

 tion to height, body weight, chest circumference, 

 and age, attaching most importance to the first. 

 He also made many observations as to the effect 

 of disease upon the vital capacity, especially as 

 regards phthisis. After the publication of his 

 method of spirometry, considerable discussion 

 arose both in this country and on the Continent 

 as to its value in clinical medicine. By some 

 clinicians it was held that the normal variations 

 of health were so great as to preclude its extended 

 use. The value of Hutchinson's figures in regard 

 to height were early called in question, either as 

 being too large or not of so great a value as 

 figures calculated from the trunk length or sitting 

 height. In the main, the results obtained by 

 various observers were in favour of Hutchinson. 

 In the little monograph by Prof. Dreyer and his 

 colleague extensive tables are published showing 

 the relationship of the vital capacity to sitting 

 height, weight, and chest circumference. .'\s Dr. 

 F. S. Hobson has shown (Nature, August 26), 

 these tables will be of particular value to all those 

 who are in any way interested in correlating the 

 vital capacity with physical fitness. It is of 

 interest that Prof. Dreyer and his co-workers have 

 drawn conclusions contrary to those of Hutchinson 

 in regard to the value of the sitting height, and 

 also that age is looked upon as a factor of little 

 or no importance up to about fifty years. 



Handbook of Patent Law of All Countries. By 

 W. P. Thompson. Eighteenth edition, com- 

 pletely revised. Pp. vii+157. (London ; Stevens 

 and Sons, Ltd., 1920.) Price 6s. 



The assistance that such a book as this must jjive 

 to inventors and patent agents fully justifies the 

 issue of a new edition brought up to date with 



