DISCOVERY 



303 



of the Fourth Dimension submitted in a competition in 

 the Scientific American in the year 1909. The trouble 

 here is twofold. The interest in the hypothetical fourth 

 dimension, in which knots can be magically untied and 

 left-hand gloves fitted on the right without difficulty, 

 is not now what once it was. Since 1909 Einstein and 

 others ha\e helped to give us a real world of four dimen- 

 sions which is unlike the old hypothetical one, and 

 therein lies present-day interest. Secondly, many of the 

 statements in this book are burst up, as they say, by the 

 theory of relativity, and it is questionable if the publica- 

 tion of these essays in their original form was wise. 



.\. S. R. 



The Oxford Outlook. January, March, Maj', and June 

 numbers. (For the Proprietors by the Oxford 

 Chronicle Co., Ltd., in conjunction with Basil 

 BlackweU.) 



One of the most interesting developments in post-war 

 university life at Oxford and Cambridge has been the 

 great increase in undergraduate journalism. In many 

 ways The Oxford Outlook is the most noteworthy as it is 

 also the most ambitious of the Oxford undergraduate 

 publications. Started by ex-service students as far back 

 as 1919. it is now edited by Messrs. L. P. Hartley and Basil 

 ilurray, and is published monthly during term-time. 

 It is a literary review, which does not attempt to bow down 

 to the lowest level of undergraduate intelligence, but sets 

 out to publish the creative work in prose and poetry and 

 the literary criticism of the best young minds at the 

 university. Its contributions are, as is to be expected, 

 somewhat uneven in value, though many of our better- 

 known young writers have appeared in it lately, including 

 Robert Nichols and Edmund Blunden. To those who 

 are interested in the serious and progressive side of 

 Oxford undergraduate life and thought, this journal is 

 recommended. 



E. L. 



Travels of a Consular Officer in North-West China. By 

 Eric Teichman, CLE., B.A. (Cambridge 

 University Press, 25s.) 



Books of travel are generally of two types, descriptive 

 or informative. Globe-trotters and journalists usually 

 tr>' their hand at the informative type, government 

 officials and resident press correspondents at the de- 

 scriptive. The books of both parties, it need hardly be 

 added, are failures in nine cases out of ten. This book is 

 not a failure. It is written by a member of our Consular 

 Service in China, who sets out w-ith the definite object of 

 conveying to the reader the information of an expert on 

 his subject — which in this . case comprises present-day 

 conditions in the north-western Chinese provinces of 

 Shenshi and Kansu. These provinces merge, on their 

 north-western fringes, into the vast and arid gobi of 

 southern Mongolia, but, unlike their neighbouring 

 territory, they possess great potentialities of mineral and 

 agricultural wealth. Indeed, one of the most interesting 

 chapters, that on railway projects, leaves one with the 



impression of how great a quantity of material is waiting 

 to be thus freed to the world. 



Mr. Teichman's knowledge is based on a series of 

 journeys that he has made through Shensi and Kansu 

 in connection with the Anglo-Chinese Opium Treaty and 

 other Anglo-Chinese investigations. In all he covered a 

 distance of 4,000 miles. Particularly interesting is the 

 account of his journey from T'Aochou to Labrang Monas- 

 tery on the north-eastern borders of Tibet, and of the 

 peculiar types of peoples, Tibetan nomads and Mahome- 

 dan and Christian missionaries, that he encountered 

 during it. 



We do not recommend this book to those who expect 

 to read of " soaring peaks," " limitless deserts," or 

 " valleys carpeted with flowers," but we do recommend 

 it to serious students of geography or anthropology. 



E. L. 



The Depths of the Soul. By Dr. W. Stekel. (Kegan 

 Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co., Ltd., 6s. 6d.) (For 

 further details see under "Books Received.") 



This book of short studies by a well-known Austrian 

 psycho-analyst has suffered to some extent in the trans- 

 lation to another language. Dr. Stekel is rather apt, like 

 many other psycho-analysts, to over-accentuate single 

 motives as the mainsprings of our desires and actions ; 

 but he is obviously a fine writer of prose (a fact which can 

 easily be realised despite some of the blemishes of 

 translation), and he has here shown us the literary possi- 

 bilities of his science. In this book we see him as a 

 creative writer making use of his valuable special know- 

 ledge. .\s such he would have acted more wisely in 

 dropping all technical language, but the intrusion of 

 coldly scientific words does not, fortunately, hide the 

 intensity of feeling and the power of revelation that 

 Dr. Stekel undoubtedly possesses. 



Our fancy was particularly taken by Eating, over- 

 indulgence in which the author ascribes, with, it must be 

 said, a rather unconscious humour, to a displacement 

 of the sex impulse. Those Who Stand Outside, in which he 

 shows the inner sadness of a physician's life; and All- 

 Souls. In the last study he finely expresses the transiency 

 of early friendships. He describes the failure of a 

 joint expedition that he took with one who several 

 years before had been his most devoted friend and whose 

 friendship he had wished to renew, and he sums up the 

 reason for the failure in these words : " Was that any- 

 thing wonderful ? Years had passed. Each one of 

 us had experienced thousands of impressions, and what 

 had once been common and had borne the same image 

 had become so different that it would have been impossible 

 to recognise them as having had a common origin. And 

 thus it is that we stand on the roads that once were so near 

 each other but now are so wide apart, and that we call 

 to each other like frightened children seeking flowers in 

 the woods and longing anxiously to hear the voices of 

 their comrades. We call to each other to prove to our- 

 selves that we have not died." 



E. L. 



