July 4, 1901] 



NATURE 



parison between the two classes of curves shows a striking 

 resemblance between their more salient features. It is 

 quite impossible in such a notice as this to deal with the 

 mass of data contained in the work, but we have no 

 doubt that all interested in the fascinating subject of 

 terrestrial magnetism will read the book with very great 

 mterest and feel, with the reviewer, that a great debt is 

 due to Dr. Weinstein for the enormous amount of labour 

 he has expended and for the satisfactory manner in which 

 he has carried out his task. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 

 The Life of the Bee. By Maurice Maeterlinck. Trans- 

 lated by Alfred Sutro. Pp. 348. (London : George 

 ."Xllen, 1901.) 5J-. net. 



So far as our present knowledge extends, there are only 

 four groups of animals which live in organised and more 

 or less civilised communities at all resembling our own ; 

 and these are not mammals, or even vertebrates, as we 

 might have been inclined to imagine a priori, but insects 

 — ants, wasps, bees and termites. Hitherto entomolo- 

 gists have been inclined to award the palm of intelligence 

 to the ants, but M. Maeterlinck thinks that the intelli- 

 gence of the hive-bee has been somewhat underrated, 

 at least as regards the readiness with which bees accept 

 and adapt themselves to new conditions ; and he also 

 argues, as others have done before him, that the proceed- 

 ings of human beings would probably appear far less in- 

 telligent to beings as far removed from man as man is from 

 the bee, than do those of a bee-hive to ourselves. The book 

 is not a romance in which bees are anthropomorphised, 

 but an actual presentation of the life-history of the bee, 

 and it appears to be abreast of the latest knowledge on the 

 subject. The subject is discussed from the standpoint of 

 a moderate agnosticism, and is interspersed with philo- 

 sophical reflections on the various phases of bee-life as 

 compared with human life, and of the equal mystery sur- 

 rounding both. A fairly good list of some of the principal 

 works on bees, in which English writers hold a very 

 prominent position, is given at the end of the book. In- 

 cidentally, we are sorry to see the very unfavourable 

 picture drawn, in § 94, of the peasantry of Normandy. 

 We hope and believe that it is by no means universally 

 applicable to the peasantry of other countries, including 

 our own. As the work has doubtless been translated 

 under the supervision of the author, it is probable that 

 his meaning has been fairly grasped and expressed by his 

 translator. As a specimen of the style of the book we 

 may quote a short passage from pp. 302, 303 : " Were an 

 observer of a hundred and fifty times our height, and 

 about seven hundred and fifty times our importance 

 (these being the relations of stature and weight in which 

 we stand to the humble honey-flyj, one who knew not our 

 language, and was endowed with senses totally different 

 from our own ; were such an one to have been studying us, 

 he would recognise certain curious material transforma- 

 tions in the course of the last two-thirds of the century, 

 but would be totally unable to form any conception of our 

 moral, social, political, economic or religious problems." 

 Here and there (as in the case of the word "importance" 

 in the above passage) we find a word used which seems, 

 from the context, hardly to express the author's meaning 

 in English ; and more rarely we find a technical error, 

 as where Sphinx Atropos is once called a " butterfly " 

 instead of a moth. These trifling defects can easily be 

 remedied in a second edition, and in no way impair the 

 interest of a book of somewhat unusual character. We 

 should add that M. Maeterlinck is himself a practical 

 bee-keeper as well as an eminent man of literature i, and 

 has therefore the advantage of an acquaintance at first- 

 hand with the general subject. W. F. K. 



NO. 1653, VOL. 64] 



West African Studies. By Mary H. Kingsley. Second 



Edition, with Additional Chapters. Pp. xxxii-l-507. 



(London : Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1901). Price 



7s. bd. 

 We are glad that a popular edition of the late Miss 

 Kingsley's "West African .Studies" has been issued at 

 a price which puts it within the reach of the humblest 

 student ; for, as we pointed out in our review of the 

 first edition some twelve months ago, the book is worthy 

 of the widest and closest study not only by students of 

 primitive religion, but also by all those who have the 

 interest of our West .African colonies at heart. Before 

 she started for .South Africa Miss Kingsley had arranged 

 to issue this edition, and though she did not live to see it 

 through the press, the task of editmg the volume has 

 been completed by Mr. George Macmillan on the lines 

 already approved by her. The new edition differs from 

 the old by the omission of the appendices by the Comte 

 de Cardi and Mr. John Harford, which, when once on 

 record, are always accessible to the student, while their 

 absence of general interest would have hardly justified 

 their inclusion in the present reprint. In their place 

 room has thus been found for a number of lectures and 

 magazine articles which Miss Kingsley delivered and 

 wrote shortly before her death. The new matter includes 

 her Hibbert lecture on "African Law and Religion," 

 some articles on " Property in West Africa," reprinted 

 from the Moriiing Post, and two lectures on Imperialism 

 in general and " Imperialism in West Africa." The bulk 

 of the volume has been reprinted in its original form. 



Mr. George Macmillan has prefixed an interesting 

 introductory notice to the second edition, in the course of 

 which he sketches the circumstances which led Miss 

 Kingsley to undertake the researches which will always 

 identify her name with West Africa ; at the same time 

 he gives a brief sketch of her character. We cannot 

 refrain from quoting one passage, which seems to us to 

 explain her personality more concisely and more truly 

 than any other appreciation of her that we have yet seen. 



" Not long after her death a friend who knew her well, 

 a man qualified to speak by long experience of men and 

 affairs, summed up the rare combination of overflowing 

 sympathy and intellectual grasp which constituted at 

 once the power and the charm of Mary Kingsley by 

 saying that 'she had the brain of a man and the heart 

 of a woman.' Speaking of her time in West Africa, 

 she herself said, on one occasion, that she was 'doing 

 odd jobs, and trying to understand things '.' The phrase 

 was characteristically modest, but here again we see 

 how the heart which inspired the 'jobs,' which were 

 always for some one else's benefit, worked deliberately 

 in concert with the brain which was ever 'trying to 

 understand things.' Together the two phrases strike the 

 keynote of her life." 



The Use oj Words in Reasoning. By Alfred Sidgwick. 



Pp. xi -I- 370. (London : Adam and Charles Black 



1 90 1.) ys. bd. net. 

 The name of Mr. Alfred Sidgwick is a sufficient 

 guarantee that this book will be of value to all who are 

 genuinely interested in the processes of reasonmg, and 

 desire, without plunging into the shadowy land where 

 logic merges itself in metaphysical speculation, t<i extend 

 their research somewhat further than a study of the 

 formal logic of the schools will take them. The old- 

 fashioned formal logic, " Pass Mods" logic, is, in fact, of 

 little use except as a mental discipline for University 

 passmen ; others will hardly find in the ancient jingle of 

 Barbara Celarent Darii Ferioquc prioris, with its many 

 combinations and permutations, a sufficient explanation 

 of all the phenomena of reasoning. As Mr. Sidgwick 

 says (p. 338) : " Logic . . . might really quicken o.ir 

 sense of bad reasoning ; but what formal logic does is 

 only to quicken it in the least interesting and important 



