DISCOVERY 



283 



" There are some of us old enough to recall a cartoon in 

 Punch that depicted the eminent statesman swung in a 

 hammock in a tree in his garden, and murmuring self-com- 

 placently a measure of an Ariel's spirit song : 



" ' Dizzily, dizzily let me drowse 



Uader the shadow of Hughenden boughs. ' 



" Though he. Lord Beaconsfield and ex-Prime Minister of 

 a Victorian age, was probably reposing in Virgilian atti- 

 tude, after the manner of Tityrus. under the covering of a 

 spreading branch on this particular occasion, we take it 

 that the quoted expression of his untiring admiration for 

 trees referred rather to the trees of landscapes generally 

 than to any tree in particular. Be that as it may, it was 

 a high compliment he paid to them ; and if any Conifer 

 deserves its share of the praise bestowed more than other, 

 it is the Common Silver Fir, the mightiest and the highest 

 of them all." 



So much for the style of the book. And yet it is 

 crammed with information of the right kind. There is 

 another point. There are not enough illustrations. The 

 addition of pictures of the different trees described would 

 be a great advantage. They would greatly assist those 

 readers who cannot get out and see the trees themselves ; 

 also pictures do help to relieve the monotony of a scientific 

 book, and the published price admits of them. 



A. S. R. 



The New Psychology and Its Relation to Life. By A. G. 

 Tansley. (George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., los. 6d. 

 net.) 



Mr. Tansley is to be congratulated upon having accom- 

 plished a timely and most useful work, and, thanks to his 

 thorough grasp of the subject and his exceptional powers 

 of exposition, he has done it so well that his book should 

 stand, on the lowest ground, as a standard of treatment. 

 In view of the literature which has rapidly arisen con- 

 cerning psychology', it is at any rate safe to say that Mr. 

 Tansley's book will most assuredly serve as an invaluable 

 primer for some time to come. 



The author is a botanist bj' training and profession, 

 and no doubt the verve and lucidity which he displays, 

 in the handling of a difficult science which is yet in its 

 infancy, may owe something to that holiday feeling which 

 we are expected to find in change of occupation, while 

 it lacks nothing which we should expect from a man 

 whose life-work has been in relation to a more exact and 

 much older science. 



We may freely admit that the value of a scientific work 

 should not be prejudiced because it is written in halting 

 sentences or sUpshod English, but, just as a worthy picture 

 deserves a good frame, so the value of Mr. Tansley's 

 r&um6 is enhanced by the purity and ease of his diction. 



The scope of the work is defined at the close of his 

 introductory chapter, where he points out that " already 

 great strides have been made towards a self-consistent 

 and illuminating interpretation of the human mind, and 

 the field of future investigation seems illimitable. At the 

 same time it must be recognised that much of this wealth 

 of material is but little developed scientifically, that there 



[Continued on p. 284 



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