342 



NATURE 



[July 3, 19 19 



undertaking to matters with which he is thoroughly 

 famiUar, the most censorious critic would have 

 found little to blame ; but he has attempted to cover 

 so large a field that the most friendly reader is 

 often reminded of Dr. Johnson's ungallant dictum 

 that a " woman's preaching is like a dog's walk- 

 ing on his hind-legs. It is not done well ; but you 

 are surprised to find it done at all. " The psycholo- 

 gist will perhaps feel this when confronted with 

 such questions as : " Can it be that thought also 

 constitutes a radio-active phenomenon? Is it 

 evolved from the disappearing cerebral substance 

 by a process as yet inexplicable? " while the 

 physiologist must object to diflScult problems of 

 nutrition being summarily and dogmatically de- 

 cided, the decision being emphasised by such 

 aphorisms as: "The chains of the laboratory 

 must not too closely shackle the limbs of education, 

 for education is a thing which lives and moves." 



The general physiological introduction is, in 

 fact, the weakest part of the book, and the method 

 of its presentation in an English edition is, we 

 think, open to criticism. The work is announced 

 as edited, with notes and an introduction, by Prof. 

 Stanley Kent, and on pp. 28-29 ^ note, containing 

 a mild witticism as to the work of the heart, duly 

 appears. But the editor has not thought it his 

 duty to amplify the citations of literature. Ferrier 

 is cited in a French translation. Hill and Flack in 

 a short French abstract, while a misleading ac- 

 count of the chemical physiology of respiration is 

 allowed to stand without any marginal references 

 to the papers of Haldane, Pembrey, or their 

 pupils. Similarly, the English reader of the sec- 

 tion upon the physiological action of alcohol 

 should have been directed to the recent 

 report of the scientific committee appointed by 

 the Central Control Board, a report which 

 modifies some of the inferences likely tO' be 

 drawn by the general reader from Prof. Amar's 

 statements. The description on pp. 73-75 of in- 

 direct calorimetry should have been supplemented 

 by references to some of the recent papers ac- 

 cessible to the English reader; as it stands, it 

 conveys a very inadequate impression of the diffi- 

 culties of such work. 



We have directed attention to these defects 

 because, in the introduction, an appeal is made to 

 a wide circle of readers, and we fear that an 

 erroneous impression of simplicity and finality may 

 be conveyed. In our opinion, the book should have 

 received much closer editorial supervision before 

 being placed in the hands of the general public. 



M. G. 



THE PROBLEM OF INDIVIDUALITY. 

 (i) Conscience and Fanaticism: An Essay in 



Moral Values. By George Pitt-Rivers. Pp. 



xvi + ii2. (London: Wm. Heinemann, 1919.) 



Price 65. net. 

 (2) The Nature of Being: An Essay in Ontology. 



By Henry H. Slesser. Pp. 224. (London : 



George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1919.) Price 



I05. 6d. net. 



NO. 2592, VOL. 103] 



(3) Life and Finite Individuality: Two Symposia. 



1. By J. S. Haldane, D'Arcy W. Thompson, 

 P. Chalmers Mitchell, and L. T. Hobhouse. 



2. By Bernard Bosanquet, A. S. Pringle-Patti- 

 son, G. F. Stout, and Viscount Haldane. 

 Edited for the AristoteHan Society by Prof. 

 H. Wildon Carr. Pp. 194. (London : Williams 

 and Norgate, 1918.) Price 6s. net. 



WE have been forced by great world events to 

 revise many accepted formulae ahd analyse 

 anew many familiar concepts. The period of re- 

 construction on which the human race seems to 

 j have entered is not confined to economic and 

 social relations, and "unrest" is not merely de- 

 scriptive of the labour world ; it extends to the 

 sphere of speculation. In the new order which 

 we feel arising it is easy to see that the pre- 

 dominant interest is the problem of the limits of 

 individuality. 



(1) Mr. Pitt-Rivers has given us a study of 

 very great interest and value if we consider, not 

 the erudition or lack of erudition it displays, for 

 it makes no pretence to any, but the special cir- 

 cumstances which have led to its conception and 

 production. A young officer in such leisure as is 

 afforded to him in the intervals between the active 

 operations of campaigning relieves the enntii by 

 setting himself the task of studying the curious, 

 and to him irritating, phenomenon, the conscienti- 

 ous objector. He has done it very well. There 

 is a certain lack of co-ordination between the parts 

 of his book, but what we are struck with is the 

 freshness with which one who has responded 

 cheerfully and whole-heartedly to the call of the 

 community views as an intellectual puzzle the 

 case of the man who fanatically rejects that call, 

 even to the extent of incurring ignominy and 

 extreme personal suffering. 



(2) Mr. Slesser 's "Essay in Ontology" is a 

 much more ambitious effort. It proposes in a 

 very short treatise, divided into easy sections with 

 bold headlines, to settle finally the vexed problem 

 of metaphysics. It regards the enterprise as both 

 simple and easy. To enter the kingdom of philo- 

 sophy we have only to become as little children. 

 It brings to mind the famous adventure of a pro- 

 fessor in the Academy of Laputa, who simplified 

 the task still further by inventing a machine by- 

 means of which works of philosophy could be pro- 

 duced without any aid from learning and study. 



(3) If anyone wants a corrective to the notion, 

 by no means uncommon, that the problems of 

 philosophy are simple and only require that we 

 shall consent to be disingenuous, he will find it 



if he will study the second symposium in the Aris- 9 

 totelian Society's supplementary volume. The ■ 

 question discussed from various points of view by * 

 Prof. Bosanquet, Prof. Pringle-Pattison, Prof. 

 Stout, and Lord Haldane, " Do finite individuals 

 possess a substantive or an adjectival mode of 

 being? " deals with the problem which presents 

 probably the deepest cleavage in philosophical 

 opinion, not only to-day, but also throughout the 

 modern period. It is a metaphysical and a logical 

 problem. Is reality ultimately monistic, or is it 



