January 30, 1896] 



NATURE 



291 



possible, is a plane of what is termed " composite sym- 

 metry." Such an artificial and complicated method of 

 interpreting the result of the old-fashioned centre of 

 symmetry seems to involve its own condemnation, and to 

 be quite unsatisfactory for the purposes of the teacher. 

 As regards the nomenclature of the thirty-two classes, 

 the sooner the Professors of Mineralogy can come to a 

 decision as to the best names to be applied to them, the 

 better for the student. Some of the names here suggested 

 are too long to be often used : Class 28, for example, is 

 termed the "tetraedrisch-pentagondodekaedrische Klasse." 

 Though nomenclature is not of essential importance, the 

 giving of a name is by no means a small matter ; still, 

 even a long adjective of thirty-four letters will be better 

 than a constantly changing adjective of seventeen. 



A very brief account of the researches of Bravais, 

 Sohncke, and Schonflies, relative to the nature of crystal 

 structure, is all that could possibly be included in a work 

 which is to be useful to the general student ; such a 

 sketch has been given in this edition, and has had the 

 benefit of revision by one of the great pioneers in the 

 subject, Prof. Sohncke himself. 



The above are the more important of Prof. Groth's con- 

 stitutional innovations, and all that can be referred to in 

 this brief notice. We would only add that the book is 

 well illustrated, there being no fewer than 702 figures and 

 three excellent coloured plates, and that it is furnished 

 with a very complete index to its contents. By the issue 

 of this last edition of his book. Prof. Groth has conferred 

 one more boon on the students of Crystallography. 



L. Fletcher. 



ELEMENTARY IDEAS OF MANKIND. 



Ethnische Eletnentargedanken in der Lehre vom Men- 



schen. By A. Bastian. 2 vols. Pp. xvi -F 314; xlv -f 



224. (Berlin : Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1895.) 



PROFESSOR BASTIAN has here added to his 

 numerous works on ethnology what must be 

 regarded as, in some sense, the crown of the edifice he 

 has spent his life in rearing. It is an attempt to trace 

 out the elementary ideas of mankind. For long ages 

 every historical people, shut up within a very limited 

 area, both physically and mentally, when inquiring 

 through its foremost thinkers into the menial constitu- 

 tion of the race, had no other means of finding an answer 

 to its questions than an analysis of the individual mind. 

 The philosopher examined his own consciousness, for- 

 getful that it was the consciousness of an individual in 

 an advanced stage of civilisation, and that what might 

 seem to him elementary, from his familiarity and the 

 familiarity of those with whom he came into contact with 

 it from earliest years, might really be the result of long 

 development, or an amalgam of numerous, perhaps but 

 slightly related, ideas. The results, therefore, of his 

 inquiries were shifting, uncertain, in many cases abso- 

 lutely untrue. And, when he came to apply those results 

 objectively to the society in which he found himself, still 

 greater uncertainties and divergencies of course followed. 

 What was needed, was an external means of checking 

 and comparing the conclusions arrived at from time to 

 time. For want of this, the conclusions themselves 

 remained without practical influence, or (especially, it 

 NO. 1370, VOL. 53] 



may be added, when applied to social and political 

 organisations) became positively disastrous. Man did 

 not really know himself; and thinking that he did so, 

 he often committed great and deplorable blunders. 



But at last, in the gradual progress of discovery — first 

 of geographical discovery, afterwards of scientific, and 

 more particularly biological, discovery — the essential 

 unity of mankind has been demonstrated. Reports of 

 discoverers and the great ethnographical collections, 

 formed chiefly in the capitals of Europe and at Washing- 

 ton, have exhibited unity, not merely physical, but 

 mental and spiritual. It has thus become possible to 

 set the ideas, the customs, and the organisation of the 

 more advanced peoples over against those of the less 

 advanced, and thus to effect that " parallelisation with 

 equivalent corresponding existences " which gives the 

 long-wanting means of checking the results of intro- 

 spective psychology. 



Starting then from the postulate of the essential unity 

 of mankind, the veteran Professor follows the comparative 

 method for the purpose of ascertaining in the order of 

 conception-types, as they emerge in ethnical ideal 

 creations, what are the elementary ideas of mankind, 

 and thus of grasping what is involved in the totality of 

 these conceptions, and of discerning oneself in every 

 child of man, so far as intelligence reaches. Accord- 

 ingly, although the book is addressed primarily to meta- 

 physicians. Dr. Bastian writes not without a practical 

 aim. A thorough comprehension of the mental and 

 spiritual unity of mankind, a realisation of the fact that 

 under all superficial divergencies of expression, whether 

 in language, in myth or in custom, the same ideas, the 

 same purposes rule in all men, and a consequent con- 

 viction that patience and tact only are required to 

 reconcile all these divergencies by discovering their 

 underlying identity, and tracing the devious path where- 

 by each of them has travelled — these are qualifications 

 not merely of the ideal anthropologist, but of the ideal 

 statesman : qualifications more than ever necessary in 

 these days, when discoveries and inventions ha,ve brought 

 the foremost nations of Europe into relations of ope kind 

 or other with so many of the more backward races all 

 over the world, making continually fresh demands on the 

 sympathy born of knowledge to avoid difficulties and 

 bloodshed, promote good feeling, and clear away obstacles 

 to the progress of civilisation. Even among the civilised 

 nations themselves, all of which have their social ques- 

 tions, sprung from the ferment of mutual intercourse 

 under the influence of modern conditions, knowledge of 

 the elementary ideas of mankind and of their expressions 

 in social form — that is to say, in institutions — is calcu- 

 lated to assist materially in the solution of the problems 

 which are now presenting themselves. 



The book has, therefore, been written with these things 

 in view ; and there is no nation to which they are more 

 important than our own : none, perhaps, to which they 

 are so important. Yet the British Government has done 

 less than any towards the systematic study of anthro 

 pology. The Imperial Institute might have served the 

 purpose of a great national school of anthropology, where 

 the rulers of our subject-peoples could be trained. It 

 has been turned, instead, into a second-rate club. Mean- 

 while, those whose mission it is to direct the destinies of 



