October 9, 1919] 



NATURE 



1 1 1 



■Berlin and the German universities than London 

 is, and Prof. Lossky is known to many of us by 

 his part in the International Congresses of I'hilo- 

 sophy. He is, in fact, thoroughly cosmopolitan 

 so far as his qualifications in philosophy are 

 concerned. The title of his book might lead the 

 reader to expect a theory in accord with some 

 of the more noticeable modern developments, 

 such as Bergson's doctrine of instinct or Croce's 

 aesthetic activity, but intuition has not any such 

 distinctive meaning for Prof. Lossky. He means 

 by the intuitive basis of knowledge merely the 

 vagueness with which the object of knowledge 

 exists undiscriminated, before it is discriminated. 

 This, of course, is the crucial point of realist 

 theory. What it has to account for primarily is 

 " vagueness," in the precise and not vague mean- 

 ing of the term. According to the realist theory, 

 tables and chairs are, so far as their basis in 

 reality is concerned, the same for men and for 

 guinea-pigs. Apart from acts of discrimination, 

 men and guinea-pigs are on one level of know- 

 ledge. What is that? Well, the answer is what 

 the realists are trying to give us, and perhaps if 

 we are patient and allow them time enough they 

 will succeed. 



(2) It is not easy to indicate any particular 

 connection between Prof. Lossky 's book and Dr. 

 Znariiecki's "Cultural Reality." Their names 

 might suggest that they share an Eastern Euro- 

 pean viewpoint, if such there be. But, as Dr. 

 Znaniecki is lecturer in the University of Chicago, 

 it is not surprising that the philosophy of the New 

 ^^'orld — Pragmatism and New Realism — mainly 

 occupies his attention. " Culturalism " is the 

 thesis that there are an objective reality and 

 a subjective adaptation that both change, and 

 change more profoundly than can be expressed by 

 the advance of knowledge by discrimination. It 

 is an attempt to blend the realist theory that there 

 is an object on which the only mental work is dis- 

 crimination with the pragmatist theory that we 

 make truth. The idea apparently is that from 

 the two separate worlds of things and values there 

 arises a third reality, which is irreducible to either 

 — cultural reality sui generis. The primitive 

 material is not conceived as vague, but as a 

 "concrete chaos of historical reality." 



■ H. W. C. 



IRON AND STEEL PRODUCTION IN 

 GREAT BRITAIN DURING THE WAR. 

 The Iron and Steel Industry of the United King- 

 dom under War Conditions : ,4 Record of the 

 Work of the Iron and Steel Production Depart- 

 ment of the Ministry of Munitions. By Dr. 

 F. H. Hatch. Pp. xii+167. (London: Privately 

 printed for Sir John Hunter by Harrison and 

 Sons, 1919.) 



ON account of the vastness of the field covered, 

 the variety and complexity of the technical 

 problems involved, and the far-reaching industrial 

 •questions raised, the activities of the Iron and 



NO. 2606, VOL. 104] 



Steel Production Department of the Ministry of 

 Munitions during the war form a subject of sur- 

 passing interest and importance. The history of 

 this great work has been written by Dr. F. H. 

 Hatch, himself a member of the Department. 



The narrative falls naturally into two divisions, 

 namely, (i) that of the small Steel Department 

 which was formed as a branch of the IVIaterials 

 Department, of which Sir Leonard Llewelyn was 

 director, and {2) that of the much larger organisa- 

 tion formed by Sir John Hunter when he became 

 Director of Iron and Steel Production in August, 

 1916. 



Sir John Hunter was confronted with a very 

 difficult task. The demand for various types of 

 steel for munitions and shipbuilding was growing 

 rapidly while the supply of raw materials essential 

 for their manufacture was threatened with curtail- 

 ment, if not complete suspension, so far as foreign 

 sources were concerned, by the activity of German 

 submarines. The only sound remedy was the 

 development of home resources, but the substitu- 

 tion of lean phosphoric ironstones such as con- 

 stitute the main portion of British "iron ores for 

 the rich ores imported principally from Spain and 

 the Mediterranean, involved such sweeping 

 changes in plant, supplies, inland transport, 

 labour, etc., that it could only have been carried 

 out with difficulty even in peace-time. Under war 

 conditions it was evident that the problem would 

 require the most skilful handling by a carefully 

 organised department. In spite of difficulties 

 which at times appeared to be almost insuperable. 

 Sir John Hunter's "Basic Iron Program" 

 obtained a high measure of success, and enabled 

 the urgent and incessant calls of the great Service 

 Departments for ship plates, shells, and other 

 munitions requiring steel in their manufacture to 

 be punctually and duly met. 



It is a remarkable tribute to the inherent but 

 not always obvious organising power of the nation 

 that under the adverse conditions of a great war 

 it should have been possible to raise the steel 

 production of the country to the highest point it 

 has ever reached in the history of the industry. 

 Under the stress of necessity raw materials which 

 had been allowed to lie dormant in this country 

 were rapidly developed and brought to the pro- 

 ducing stage. Iron ores in Oxfordshire, coking 

 coal in Scotland, ganister for silica bricks, mould- 

 ing sands for foundry work, and refractory sands 

 for open hearth furnace bottoms, are instances in 

 point. Whereas in 1913 and 1914 the total steel 

 output was 766 and 7-83 million tons respectively, 

 it had risen in 1917 to 971 million tons, and during 

 the first half of 1918 it was at the rate of close on 

 10 million tons per annum. The plans of the 

 Department provided ultimately for an increase to 

 12 million tons annually. Dr. Hatch suggests two 

 main reasons for the success obtained ; these are 

 (1) the trust reposed by Sir John Hunter in the 

 members of his staff, which was entirely recipro- 

 cated, and (2) the fact that manufacturers cordially 

 co-operated in the plans of the Ministry and loyally 



