July 27, 1916] 



NATURE 



439 



*' Scientific Motive " and " Practical Purpose " are 

 very convincing. "Savoirc'est prevoir; prevoir 

 c'est pourvoir." But there is no bowing- in the 

 house of utiUtarianism, for the author takes such 

 wonders of the modern world as wireless tele- 

 graphy, the telephone, the aeroplane, radium, 

 antiseptics and antitoxins, spectrum analysis and 

 X-rays, and shows most circumstantially that 

 "each one of these things had its foundations in 

 purely scientific work, and was not the result of 

 deliberate intention to make something of service 

 to humanity." In this connection we confess to 

 being staggered by a remarkable quotation from 

 the late Prof. W. K. Brooks ; we like better one 

 from Prof. A. X. Whitehead that "it is no 

 paradox to say that in our most theoretical moods 

 we may be nearest to our most practical applica- 

 tions." 



In the very first volume of Xature a strong 

 plea was made on behalf of scientific discipline, 

 and from time to time since powerful voices have 

 urged upon the nation the imperativeness of payinjr 

 more heed to the advancement and application of 

 natural knowledge and to the cultivation of the 

 scouting intelligence. Much has been done which 

 it would be inaccurate and ungrateful to ignore, 

 but still the people perish in thousands for lack 

 of knowledge, and science, as Mr. Gregory says, 

 is still too much the Cinderella in the house of 

 education. It is valuable, therefore, that we 

 should have in this book a judicial and factual 

 statement showing not merely that natural 

 science has given great gifts to mankind and put 

 into our hands the keys to many doors, but that 

 the mastery of some of its methods and the under- 

 standing of some of its principles are in themselves 

 an educative discipline that cannot be attained in 

 any other vvay whatsoever. We are glad that the 

 author has gone a step further in insisting on the 

 ethical value of learning to be a respecter of things 

 and of habituating oneself to a high standard of 

 accuracy. 



In his references to the life and work, of men 

 like Galileo, Xewton, Faraday, Darwin, Huxley, 

 Kelvin, and Pasteur, the author illustrates the 

 spirit of the discoverer — his fanaticism for the 

 sanctity of truth, his disinterestedness and im- 

 personal detachment, his delight in his work, and 

 his cautious yet alert recognition of the possi- 

 bility of error. As we read of the masters we 

 feel a freshened conviction of the value of studies 

 —far too rarely prosecuted — in the history of 

 science. Much of the book is an eloquent com- 

 mentary on the text: "The future of our civilisa- 

 tion def>ends upon the widening spread and deepen- 

 ing hold of the scientific habit of mind." And 

 since the happiness of a people depends not a 

 little on their capacity for the profitable enjoyment 

 of leisure, we welcome the author's insistence on 

 the inexhaustible delights of what our fathers 

 called the pursuit of knowledge. It is man's 

 prerogative to try to know Nature increasingly 

 well, and it is certain that in proportion to his 

 sincerity in this endeavour will be his enjoyment 

 of her acquaintance. 



Mr. Gregory has been well advised to dwell at 

 NO. 2439, vol. 97] 



considerable length on certain illustrations of the 

 moods and methods of the discoverer, for the 

 reader thus gets adequate concrete material on 

 which to base an appreciation of his own. This 

 greatly increases the value of the book. It has 

 been quizzingly said that "the man of science 

 appears to be the only man in the world who has 

 something to say, and he is the only man who 

 does not know how to say it." It is unnecessary 

 to mention that Mr. Gregory, at any rate, must 

 be exempted from this reproach, for his style is 

 luminous and refreshing. We find, indeed, but 

 one blemish in his work — that he does not tackle 

 with sufficient directness the very interesting 

 problem of the different kinds of discoverer, for 

 there are certainly several distinct species which 

 it would be profitable to have discriminated. 



J. Arthur Thomson, 



MA THEM A TIC A L TEX T-B OOKS. 



(i) Arithmetic. Part i. By F. W'. Dobbs and 

 H. K. Marsden. Pp. xv + 353. (London : G. 

 Bell and Sons, Ltd., 1915.) Price 2^. 



(2) First-year Mathematics for Secondary Schools. 

 By E. R. Breslich. Fourth edition. Pp. xxiv 

 + 344. (Chicago : The University of Chicago 

 Press ; London : Cambridge University Press, 

 1915.) Price 4^. net. 



(3) Mathematics for Machinists. By R. W. Burn- 

 ham. Pp. viii + 229. (New York : J. Wiley 

 and Sons, Inc. ; London : Chapman and Hall, 

 Ltd., 1915.) Price 5s. 6d. net. 



(4) A First Course of Geometry. By Dr. C. 

 Davison. Pp. 89. (Cambridge : At the Uni- 

 versity Press, 1915.) Price 15. 6d. 



(i) T^HIS text-book consists chiefly of sets of 

 J- examples and test-papers, with some 

 typical solutions. Detailed explanations are left 

 to each teacher to give as he thinks fit. This 

 has the double advantage of keeping the book 

 within reasonable compass and at the same time 

 including as much as any boy is likely to require, 

 for boys do not, and probably never will, read 

 long discussions in the text. But when revising 

 or doing out-of-school work a certain number of 

 specimen solutions are of real use. We like the 

 general appearance of the book ; there are numer- 

 ous interesting and attractive questions, those on 

 contours and map-reading deserving special men- 

 tion. 



(2) The author has drawn up a continuous course 

 of algebra, geometry, and very simple trigono- 

 metry, suitable for a first reading. He claims 

 that the fusion of these subjects in a single volume 

 increases the interest of the students, enriches the 

 content of the teaching syllabus, and emphasises 

 the relation between the different subjects. The 

 geometry includes simple prop>erties of parallelism, 

 congruence, tangency, and similarity ; the algebra 

 goes up to factors and quadratic equations. The 

 book is printed in a most attractive form, and 

 there are a number of excellent portraits of 

 famous mathematicians, with interesting historical 

 notes attached. 



(i) The author of this volume has had consider- 



