I30 



NATURE 



[October i6, 19 19 



to be the case in Konde and Sangfo. Again, it is 

 not quite accurate to say that "the use of the 

 high and low tones of the voices for purposes of 

 etymological distinction is not common in Bantu, 

 and is only observable (perhaps) in the Becuana 

 group, and most markedly in the Panwe lan- 

 guages of the north-west Bantu area." Tones are 

 exceedingly important in Shambala, as Arch- 

 deacon Woodward discovered, once they had been 

 pointed out to him ; also probably in Konde and 

 Sango ; and they certainly exist (no doubt to a 

 greater degree than has yet been observed) in 

 Zulu and Nyanja, to name no others. 



The summary, " History of Research into the 

 Bantu Languages," given in chap, i., is exceed- 

 ingly valuable, and the generous appreciation of 

 work done by predecessors and contemporaries 

 renders it very pleasant reading. 



OUR LEGACY OF HOPE. 



The Century of Hope. A Sketch of Western 

 Progress from 1815 to the Great War. By 

 F. S. Marvin. Pp. vi + 352. (Oxford: At the 

 Clarendon Press, 1919.) Price 6i". net. 



' I 'HIS is a historical sketch of the last hundred 

 -*■ years, distinctive in its insight and grip and 

 in the place it gives to the development of science 

 and its reactions. The new birth of humanity at 

 the Revolution brought with it a legacy which has 

 been especially expressed in the growth of know- 

 ledge and in the growth of freedom. These have 

 had manifold social reactions, as in the political 

 revival of 1815-30, w'ith its increased realisation 

 of the principles of freedom in both domestic and 

 foreign affairs ; the socialistic agitation which led 

 on the Revolution of 1848; the practical applica- 

 tions of science, from railways and the telegraph 

 onwards ; the diffusion of biological and evolu- 

 tionist ideas ; the demand for schools for all ; the 

 increased liberation of religious activity ; and the 

 adoption of social reform as a primary objective 

 of government. These are some of the subjects 

 with which Mr. Marvin deals in his vivid and con- 

 vincing book, and he leads us in conclusion to the 

 international progress w-hich is promised, he 

 thinks, even in the decade of the greatest of wars. 

 " If the war was the greatest, so also was the 

 world-alliance for humanity and international law 

 which brought it to a victorious conclusion. So 

 also, we believe, will the world-union be the 

 greatest, and most permanent, which will arise 

 from the devastated earth and the saddened but 

 determined spirits who are now facing the future 

 with a new sense of hope, which enshrines our 

 sorrows and has overcome our most oppressive 

 fears." Belief in the desirability and practicability 

 of any development is certainly a factor making 

 for its realisation, and "The Century of Hope" 

 shows that this faith is reasonable. 



The fine chapter on mechanical science and 

 invention enforces many useful lessons. "The 

 sciences have, broadly speaking, become applicable 

 to useful ends in proportion to the degree in 

 which they have become exact." "Practical appli- 

 NO. 2607, VOL. 104] 



cations of science have become more and more 

 abundant in proportion to the mutual aid of the 

 sciences among themselves." The steam-engine 

 "was the fruit of abstract thought applied to 

 practice, and, in its turn, paid back its debt to 

 science by leading to the greatest and most fruitful 

 generalisation which had yet been reached. This 

 was the principle of the conservation of energy, 

 arrived at in 1848." "Society has become, in all 

 these countries where industry has been organised 

 and developed by science, a far more united and 

 stable thing than it was before, or than it is in 

 other regions less advanced in this respect." 

 These sentences illustrate the insight and grip that 

 mark the book. In a few pages Mr. Marvin 

 sketches the development of the evolution-idea 

 from Goethe and Lamarck to Darwin. "The 

 organism in all its parts and with all its instincts 

 was for the first time seen fully as an historical 

 being." "No other part of science, no other 

 episode in the story which we have to trace, 

 affected so powerfully as did the theory of evolu- 

 tion the development of the historical spirit which 

 we distinguished at starting as one of the charac- 

 teristics of the age. The body of a man is like 

 every 'social institution, history incarnate, and 

 to Darwin more than to any other the world owes 

 i its overwhelming bent for the historical point of 

 view, the desire to know the origins of things, 

 the conviction that it is only by studying their 

 steps that we can arrive at a true comprehension 

 of their nature." 



We cannot do more than refer to the 

 lucid chapter on the new knowledge which 

 centres around the discovery of radio-activity, and 

 the inspiring discussion on social and international 

 progress. The book begins and ends with emphasis 

 on the truth that " not economic conditions ror 

 geography nor the ambition of governments is the 

 primmn mobile in human affairs, but the spirit of 

 man itself seeking greater freedom and expan- 

 sion." "The spiritual forces are the supreme 

 factors, both in lauilding the individual soul and 

 in giving a common soul to all humanity." " In 

 the history of science and its applications we have 

 the most perfect example of a growing human 

 product in which the diverse races of mankind have 

 all taken a proportionate share as they advanced 

 in civilisation." This is a book that everyone 

 should read, for it shows that from the real world 

 with all its " Hearts of Darkness " we may not 

 unreasonably augur the rising of a Heart of Light. 



OUR BOOKSHELF. 



.Australia: Problems and Prospects. By the Hon. 

 Sir C. G. Wade, K.C. Pp. iii. (Oxford: At 

 the Clarendon Press, 1919) Price 45. net. 



Sir Charles Wade, Agent-General for New 

 South Wales, was Premier of that State during 

 three years especially eventful in the effort to 

 establish State control of wages and industrial 

 unions. His pessimism as to the future of that 

 policy and of the trend of government in this 

 country may be due to the insuperable difficulties 



