90 



NATURE 



[October 2, 19 19 



towards and apprehending the more glorious 

 future. 



"Now the first thing," he says (pp. 183-85), "we 

 have to realise is that we are witnessing the dawn 

 of a renaissance of humanism in Europe comparable 

 only to that of the fifteenth century or_ to the magni- 

 ficent expansion of science in the nineteenth. . . . 

 Excavation, especially in Crete, and the recovery of 

 papvri from the sands of Egypt have not only trans- 

 forrned our outlook upon the Mediterranean civilisa- 

 tion, of which our own is the lineal descendant, but 

 has given us the inspiring feeling that some new 

 truth of first-rate importance may come to light any 

 day. ... It is becoming plain that what we call 

 science mav be best described as thinking about the 

 7V0rld in the Greek way." (Dr. Laurie's way of 

 putting this has already been quoted.) " But there is 

 another, and perhaps a deeper, reason for believing 

 that a humanist renaissance is at hand ... In the 

 hard times ahead of us the greater number will turn 

 rather to the poets, historians, and philosophers for 

 solace and edification than to the austerer discipline 

 of the exact sciences. That is for the few ; the mass 

 of men can hardly penetrate beyond its outer courts." 



So, the classics are still for the many and science 

 for the few ! Nothing is incredible, not even that 

 this and much more like it should actually be 

 written as a contribution to " Problems of 

 National Education " at the close of the great 

 war. If these are the people to whom their 

 children's educational destinies are to be com- 

 mitted for four further years, the Labour Party 

 will do well to expedite its attainment of a 

 minimum State subsistence. For, be they turned 

 out from school with their physique, morals, and 

 manners, religious and aesthetic perceptions, civic 

 ideals, and use of the subjunctive mood in sub- 

 ordinate clauses in the ancient languages never 

 so perfect, it is difficult to see what else can save 

 them from starvation in the hard times ahead. 

 Until something more in keeping with the age is 

 substituted for the intellectual training of the 

 school, the words in the opening essay (p. 39) will 

 continue to be true : " They begin their course 

 with keen interest and lively curiosity. Then 

 shades of the prison-house seem gradually to 

 close upon the growing boy." 



Frederick Soddy. 



BIOLOGICAL PROBLEMS. 

 Life and its Maintenance : A Symposium on Bio- 

 logical Problems of the Day. Pp. viii + 297. 

 (London : Blackie and Son, Ltd., 1919.) Price 

 5.<r. tiet. 



DESIRE, want, pain, disease, and death, the 

 tools used by Nature for fashioning the 

 race, are equally efficacious for awakening the 

 mental and bodily faculties of the individual. 

 Under their goad the soldier has not only shown 

 himself gifted with an unsuspected degree of in- 

 telligence, but, what is more important, has dis- 

 covered how to use the intelligence of others, so 

 that at the close of the war our scientific arms, 

 creations of the war itself, were more efficient than 

 the corresponding formations in the Army of a 

 nation which had long prided itself on it« 



NO. 2605, VOL. 104] 



thorough utilisation of all the means science 

 placed at its disposal. Even among those com- 

 pelled by age or infirmity to carry on their normal 

 vocations at home, the trifling discomforts and 

 privations to which they were subjected under 

 war's constraints acted as hormones, as adequate 

 stimuli for arousing their slumbering mental 

 faculties, and disturbing for a while the hopeless 

 incuria with which, to the detriment of the body 

 politic, our upper and middle classes are afflicted. 

 Any discomfort, whether it be the presence of a 

 flea or the necessity of absorbing war bread, 

 rouses an appropriate reaction and interest in its 

 removal. Thus it came about that a sufficient 

 number of persons, anxious to devote a certain 

 time to learning about the world around them with 

 special reference to the discomforts under which 

 they were suffering, and willing to devote an hour 

 in the week to this purpose, were found to justify 

 the delivery at University College of a course of 

 lectures which are reproduced in this volume 

 under the general title of " Life and its Main- 

 tenance." 



The first object of interest to every man is him- 

 self, and since at the time of the delivery of these 

 lectures there was a certain amount of food short- 

 age and a reasonable doubt as to the prospects of 

 food supplies in the future, it is natural that most 

 of these lectures are devoted to the subject of 

 food, its effects on man, and ihe methods of 

 increasing its production in this country. 



Prof. Bayliss leads oft with a clear, elementary 

 account of the significance of food for the body. 

 This is followed by a reassuring lecture on war 

 bread by Prof. Hopkins. The third lecture, by 

 Miss Hume, deals with accessory food facto's, 

 the importance of which was brought into unwel- 

 come prominence by the outbreaks of beri-beri and 

 scurvy among our forces abroad, and the con- 

 sideration of which, in their relation to infant feed- 

 ing, must always take an important place in our 

 measures for ensuring the health of the com- 

 munity. Prof. Cushny contributes a judicious and 

 well-balanced lecture on the subject of alcohol, 

 and the various questions relating to the pro- 

 duction of food by the improvements of farming 

 methods are dealt with by Dr. Russell, Mr. Staple- 

 don, I3r. Home, and Profs. Hickson and Tansley. 



The last five lectures are of a more miscellane- 

 ous import. The shortage of paper prompts Prof. 

 Oliver, who was responsible for editing the whole 

 series, to give a useful summary of the various 

 materials used in the manufacture of paper and 

 to describe certain new plants, notably a grass 

 [Spartina Townsendii) growing on the mud flats 

 of Southampton Water, which had been tried for 

 this purpose. Dr. Vernon deals with the relations 

 of industrial efficiency and fatigue. This subject 

 is so closely connected with the question of 

 hours of labour that no one possessed of a 

 vote has a right to say that it does not concern 

 him. This lecture, as indeed the whole collec- 

 tion, is an attempt to rouse the man in the street 

 to take an interest and a part in the search for 



