Juy 3, 1902] 
NATURE 
221 
comparatively small number of pages. The book gives 
a better bird’s-eye view of the whole subject than most 
recent works, and it has the great advantage that copious 
references make it possible for the student to consult the 
literature of the subject and supplement from original 
sources any lacunz in Prof. Jones’s presentation of facts 
and theories. W. R. 
OUR BOOK SHELF. 
Other Worlds. By Garrett P. Serviss. Pp. xv + 282. 
(London: Hirschfeld Bros., Ltd., 1902.) Price 6s. net. 
WHO amongst us has not, at some time or other, con- 
sidered the question of the possibility or probability of 
the habitability of the planets that pass across the face 
of our sky, and wondered whether any of these worlds is 
an “earth” with all her attendant phenomena? A very 
excellent account of our neighbours from this point of 
view will be found in the book before us, which, although 
it hails from the other side of the Atlantic, yet will 
nevertheless be welcomed, as it comes from the land 
where the most recent and very valuable work on the 
observations of the surface markings of the planets 
has been done. As has often been pointed out, it is 
not the large telescope that is necessary for planetary 
observation, but clear and still air, a comparatively small 
telescope, and an intelligent eye. In Arequipa the 
Americans have such a condition of atmosphere, and it 
is there that important observations of some of the 
planets have been made. 
In the present volume the author gives the reader a 
very clear insight into the present condition, so far as 
can be gathered from observation, of each of the planets, 
and the information is conveyed in such an enticing 
manner that the book should be interesting reading to 
everyone. Besides being accurate, the contents are well 
up to date, as shown by references to Pickering’s work 
on the observations, and deductions from them, of the 
lunar surface. 
The concluding chapter gives a brief but sufficient 
account of the means of finding and recognising the 
planets when they are visible in the sky, and in this is 
included a set of charts of the zodiacal constellations to 
facilitate the work of a beginner. 
Numerous well-reproduced illustrations, many from 
photographs and drawings made at the Lick Observatory, 
accompany the text, and the frontispiece shows the 
Martian surface as charted by Schiaparelli. 
Asa popular exposition of the degree of habitability of 
the planets the book is to be recommended, and the clear 
large print adds to the comfort of the reader. 
The Basis of Social Relations. .By D. G. Brinton. Pp. 
xvi + 204. (London: John Murray, 1902.) Price 
8s. net. 
The Criterion of Scientific Truth. By G.Shann. Pp. 51. 
(London : Cassell and Co., Ltd., 1902.) Price Is. 6d. 
THE persons responsible for the publication of the 
posthumous work of Dr. Brinton, described above, 
would have done better if they had taken a more com- 
prehensive view of their editorial duties. As we are told 
in the preface, no attempt has been made at verifying 
references ; so that we have highly debatable statements 
constantly made on such vague general authorisation 
as ‘Plato,’ ‘‘Wundt,” . “ Quetelet,’ “an American 
scientist,” and so forth. Curious inaccuracies in matters 
of fact have likewise been allowed to stand in various 
places, e.g. at p. 44, where we read that Crete was the 
source of “ Greek law” (whatever that vague expression 
may mean), and a well-known citation from the famous 
-NO. 1705, VOL. 66] 
; can be absolute or final. 
Hymn of Cleanthes, occurring in the “Acts of the 
Apostles,” is said to be from “a Cretan poet,” and 
at p. 13, where it is asserted of Jevons’s “logical 
machine” that it “ worked as well as the human brain,” 
the truth being, as all logicians know, that that ingenious 
invention requires all but the purely mechanical part of 
the inferential process to be performed for it by the 
operator. 
Some of these statements would possibly have been 
removed by theauthor had he lived to give the book 
his final revision, but others are such as could hardly 
have been made by a writer really acquainted with many 
of the subjects upon which Dr. Brinton expressed him- 
self with confidence. No serious student of ancient 
history would subscribe to the assertion that the early 
Romans were dominated evclus¢vely by the lust of con- 
quest, or the Greeks by the love of art (p. 111), nor does 
a study of the erotic poetry of the Christian Middle Ages 
lend much support to the notion that “ chivalry” was 
the expression of profound respect for woman as a sex, 
and devotion to a high ideal of monogamy (p. 173). 
As awhole, the book is somewhat disappointing. It is 
rather a series of odc¢ter dicta on the conditions of social 
development thanaconnected study. It is hard to under- 
stand the author’s exact conception of the “ethnic mind.” 
Sometimes (e.g. p. 25) we are told that the “ group” is 
a “generic concept” with no “objective existence,” yet 
again (e.g. p. 28) that its “actual existence” cannot be 
denied, and thatit is related to the individual mind as the 
building to its component stones. Dr. Brinton held 
very strong opinions on some subjects of current con- 
troversy. He was, for instance, confident that monogamy 
was not primitive in the species, and again, that “ ac- 
quired characters ” are transmissible. It is a pity he—or 
his representatives—should have seen fit to abstain from 
all citation of evidence or references in dealing with such 
important questions. 
Mr. Shann’s little work is a pleasantly written and fairly 
thoughtful essay in support of the view which sees in 
scientific truth simply a set of convenient descriptive 
hypotheses. The “criterion” of truth he adopts is the 
simplicity and adequacy with which our formulz enable 
us to picture a connected train of sensational experiences. 
Hence he lays great stress upon two points ; the origin 
of all knowledge must be sensational, and no knowledge 
From the standpoint adopted 
he discusses various cases of the supersession of inade- 
quate by more adequate scientific formule intelligently 
and readably, but he seems not to have realised the 
grounds on which many able thinkers would dissent from 
the empirical phenomenalism he advocates. Has he ever 
asked himself whether his general philosophical theories 
would enable him to give a reasonable account of mathe- 
matical truth? If he will reflect, for instance, on the 
nature of number, and the difficulties involved in the 
assumptions that numerical truths are of sensational 
origin and only relative validity, he will probably dis- 
cover that there are serious gaps in the phenomenalist 
theory of knowledge which he advocates. There is no 
doubt that he has something on this point. to learn from 
Kant, whom he does not mention at all in his historical 
synopsis, and possibly even more from Plato, whom he 
dismisses with a sentence or two of vague generality. 
A. E: 
Opere matematiche di Francesco Brioscht. Pp. 416. 
(Milano: Ulrico Hoepli, 1901.) 
THERE could not have been a more fitting tribute to the 
memory of Francesco Brioschi than the publication of 
his collected papers in quarto form. In order to carry 
out such an undertaking, a committee was formed 
| shortly after his death consisting of Profs. G. Ascoli, 
E. Beltrami, G. Colombo, L. Cremona, G. Negri and 
