October 14, 1897] 



NATURE 



563 



Bhattacharya is certainly not an unbiased judge, but a 

 strong partisan of Brahmanism. He denies that the 

 sect-founders are religious reformers in any sense of the 

 word. 



" Looked at with the light of sober common-sense and 

 unbiased judgment, the net result of their so-called 

 reformations is that they let loose on society an army of 

 able-bodied beggars, with the most preposterous claims 

 on the charity and the reverence of the laity. Moral 

 teaching of any kind very seldom forms a part of the 

 programmes of our prophets. They teach their followers 

 to sing some songs which tend either to corrupt their 

 morality, or to make them indifferent to work for the 

 production of wealth " (p. 359). 



There, is, no doubt, a great deal of truth in this 

 criticism, but it is certainly not the whole truth about the 

 religious systems of India. Our Pandit entirely fails to 

 see the weak points of Brahmanism which gave rise to 

 the formation of the sectarian religions, and he utterly 

 ignores the influence which the great philosophical 

 systems of India exercised on the development of the 

 sects. And altogether, he is too much of a partisan to 

 be a good historian. 



Nevertheless, there is a great deal of valuable in- 

 formation to be found also in this part of Pandit 

 Bhattacharya's book. The numerous Hindu sects are 

 grouped by him under the following classes : — (i) Siva- 

 worshipping sects, (2) Sakti worshippers, (3) Vishnu- 

 worshipping sects, (4) the disreputable Vishnu-worship- 

 ping and Guru-worshipping sects, (5) the modern 

 religions intended to bring about union between the 

 Hindus and the Mahomedans, (6) Buddhism, and (7) 

 Jainism. 



Not only in the chapter treating of the " disreputable 

 sects," but also in the accounts of the Sivites, Saktas, 

 and Vishnuvites, much will be found that is of greater 

 interest for the history of morality than for the history of 

 religion. There is hardly one crime, however abomin- 

 able, that is not recommended by one or the other of the 

 so-called Hindu "religions," and the number of sects 

 sanctioning sexual immorality is so large that we really 

 need the assurance of our author " that the moral nature 

 of the Hindus, as a nation, is, generally speaking, far 

 superior to most of their religions " (p. 458). Although 

 we cannot approve of Pandit Bhattacharya's wholesale 

 condemnation of the Hindu sects, we have to admit that 

 many of the latter-day prophets who founded " sects " 

 during the last centuries fully deserve to be denounced as 

 impostors. Take, for instance. Ram Saran, the founder 

 of the Kartabhaja sect in Bengal : — 



" To be ready with a pretext for exacting money from 

 his followers, he declared that he was the proprietor of 

 every human body, and that he was entitled to claim rent 

 from every human being for allowing his soul to occupy 

 his body. ... To enforce his right and to give a 

 pecuniary interest to his followers, the Karta appoints 

 the chief men among the latter as his bailiffs and agents 

 for collecting his revenue. The majority of the dupes of 

 the sect are women, who readily pay the small tax that is 

 demanded of them for the sake of securing long life to 

 their husbands and children." 



On the whole, I should like to recommend Pandit 

 Bhattacharya's book rather to the scholar than to the 

 NO. 1459, VOL. 56J 



general reader. At any rate, the latter will do well never 

 to forget that the author is himself a member of one of 

 the most aristocratic Brahman castes. But the student 

 of the history of civilisation in India will find in this 

 book a great deal of useful and highly interesting 

 information. 



The value of the book is enhanced by an excellent 

 index and glossary. M. Winternitz. 



EXPERIMENTAL MORPHOLOGY. 

 Experimental Morphology. By Charles Benedict Daven- 

 port, Ph.D., Instructor in Zoology in Harvard Univer- 

 sity. Part First. Effect of Chemical and Physical 

 Agents upon Protoplasm. Pp. xiv -f 280. (London : 

 Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1897.) 



THE term "experimental morphology" is new, and 

 requires to be defined. We cannot do better than 

 quote the author's own definition, 



" Several distinct steps can be recognised in the pro- 

 gress which has been made in the interpretation of form. 

 The earlier studies were concerned chiefly with answer- 

 ing the question. What are the differences between the 

 various adult forms ? The results of observations and 

 reflections relating to this question constitute the sciences 

 of descriptive and comparative anatomy. Next, a more 

 fundamental inquiry was entered upon : Hozu are 

 these forms produced or developed t The results 

 of observations and reflections upon this subject con- 

 stitute the science of comparative embryology. Finally, 

 in these later days a still more fundamental question has 

 come to the front : Why does an organism develop as it 

 does? What is that which directs the path of its 

 differentiation ? This is the problem which the new 

 school of ' Entwicklungsmechanik ' has set for itself— 

 it is likewise the problem with which this book is 

 concerned. 



" The causes which determine the course of an organ- 

 ism's development are numerous, but fall into two general 

 categories : namely, internal causes, which include the 

 qualities of the developing protoplasm ; and external 

 causes, which include the chemical and physical proper- 

 ties of the environment in which the protoplasm is de- 

 veloping. ... It is the purpose of the present work to 

 consider the effects resulting from external causes. 



" When we wish to isolate the separate effects in any 

 complex of causes, we must resort to the well-known 

 procedure of experimentation. . . . Accordingly we call 

 in experiment to get an insight into the causes of organic 

 form, and thus justify the name which we have applied 

 to our study." 



The author proposes to attack the problem of the in- 

 fluence of external agents upon organisms from four 

 points, viz. : (i) their influence upon the phenomena 

 exhibited by all living protoplasm ; (2) their influence 

 upon growth ; (3) their influence upon cell division ; and 

 (4) their influence upon differentiation. The present 

 volume deals with the first point only, and its scope will 

 be best understood if we say that it treats of the 

 physiology of protoplasm. 



The book is mainly based upon the work of others, 

 and owes not a little to Verworn. It is, in fact, the 

 author's expressed aim " so to exhibit our present know- 

 ledge in the field of experimental morphology as to indi- 

 cate the directions for further research." It is therefore 



