February io, 192 i] 



NATURE 



753 



is therefore probaWy transmissible to their off- 

 spring." But how is the restriction to be effected? 

 The authors answer : By segregation, sterilisation 

 in certain cases, and a good banns law. Besides 

 these coercive methods, the first of which is re- 

 garded as urgently necessary, the authors look 

 to an increasingly enlightened social conscience. 

 The objections to coercive methods are considered 

 in a fair-minded and temperate manner, but we 

 confess to have less faith than the authors have 

 in the wisdom of tribunals. We should not like 

 our neighbours to decide whether we are to have 

 permission to marry, and it is well known that 

 such conditions as feeble-minded and epileptic are 

 not very precise. It is interesting to speculate 

 what human history would have been if eugenics 

 boards had segregated — well, perhaps we had 

 better not mention names. 



On the positive side the authors write admirably. 

 Sex-selection is a reality ; if it were better educated 

 ind given wider opportunities, it might become 

 a very potent factor in racial progress. To pro- 

 mote a higher marriage-rate among superiors, the 

 authors make a plea for clean living, for simpler 

 living, for a wider education of faculties, for a 

 franker approbation of the married state as more 

 normal than celibacy, and against the persistent 

 prolongation of the training period beyond the 

 early twenties. At the same time, the authors assure 

 us that the people, as a whole, are not marrying 

 less than they used to do ; what is wrong is 

 postponement or avoidance of marriage among 

 the more individuated. Not only so, but when 

 they marry they do not have enough children. 

 They do not want to, and the reasons for this are 

 not wholly selfish. A careful » analysis is sub- 

 mitted, and attention is directed to the desirability 

 of certain educational and economic changes which 

 may counteract the tendency to race-suicide. 

 There is a point here that seems to be often over- 

 looked in regard to eugenic education. The 

 authors say : " Perhaps the time is not so far 

 distant when babies will be considered an integral 

 part of a girl's curriculum." But while that may 

 Ik; very useful for the girls who marry, is it not 

 pt to be a refined cruelty towards the many wlio 

 find no mates? 



The authors go on to discuss, in relation to 

 ' ugenics, such subjects as the colour line, immigra- 

 tion, and war — all with the objectivity, scholar- 

 ship, and fair-mindedness that are characteristic 

 of the whole book. There is a useful chapter on 

 ■lie value of genealogical outlook, both ethically 

 itid scientifically. Preoccupation with it may lead 

 to loss of perspective; but to call genealogy a 

 fad is a betrayal of foolishness and vulgarity. The 

 NO. 2676, VOL. 106] 



authors' studies end with an emphasis on good 

 environment (euthenics), and this corrects what 

 seems to us a slight partiality in the early chapters. 

 We strongly recommend the book as an all-round, 

 well-documented, level-headed answer to the ques- 

 tion : What is practicable in the way of eugenics? 



The First Great Alpine Traveller. 



The Life of Horace Benddict de Saussure. By 

 D. W. Freshfield, with the collaboration of 

 H. F. Montagnier. Pp. xii-t-479. (London: 

 Edward Arnold, 1920.) Price 25s. net. 



A LIFE of de Saussure, author of the 

 " Voyages dans les /Vlpes," has long been 

 desired, and that has now been supplied by an 

 Englishman singularly fitted for the task. Dr. 

 Douglas Freshfield, who was incited so long ago 

 as 1875 by Ruskin, and has been ever since, 

 directly or indirectly, gathering materials. The 

 handsome volume before us is the result. No one 

 has a better knowledge of mountains than Dr. 

 Freshfield, for when a boy, in 1859 and i860, he 

 accompanied his father and mother on riding 

 tours through several parts of the Alps, and has 

 repeatedly returned thither. He has also explored 

 many other mountain chains, and has published 

 his experiences. In 1869 he described a journey 

 through the Central Caucasus and Bashan, in the 

 course of which he ascended Kasbek and one of 

 the twin summits of Elbruz. In i8g6 he pub- 

 lished his splendid work on " The Exploration of 

 the Caucasus," and his journey of 1899 " Round 

 Kangchcnjunga " was yet more adventurous, 

 though rendered rather less successful by per- 

 sistently bad weather ; while since then, in 

 " Hannibal Once More," he has discussed the 

 route of the Carthaginian general across the Alps, 

 suggesting one considerably south of those 

 generally supported, for which there is un- 

 doubtedly much to be said. 



Horace Beni^dict de Saussure, born at Geneva 

 in 1740, was a man of good family, strong 

 intellect, and remarkably wide education. He 

 could write with ease both Latin and Greek ; 

 in addition to French, he knew German, 

 Dutch, and English well enough to con- 

 verse easily with the educated men of each 

 country, and had a wide knowledge for that day 

 of mathematics, metaphysics, and natural science, 

 esjjecially geology, mineralogy, and cherftical 

 physics. In his youth, though the summit of 

 Mont Blanc was visible from the quay of Geneva, 

 very few travellers had penetrated so far as 

 Chamonix until, in 1742, an English party proved 



