696 

NATURE 
[AuGUST 26, 1915 

furthermore, ‘‘that the Darwinian factors of varia- 
tion, selection, transmission, and adaptation are 
active in the life of societies as in that of 
organisms.” His aim is to discover how far 
societary variation, selection, transmission and 
adaptation are the same as organismal variation, 
selection, transmission and adaptation. He re- 
cognises, indeed, that adaptations in mankind have 
come to be mainly mental and external (for we 
transform our environment as much as we are 
transformed by it), but he goes back to the simple 
and fundamental “folk-ways,” which “ form the 
germ and matrix of all human institutions,’’? and 
inquires whether these are ‘‘ adaptive by way of 
the activity of factors of the order of those opera- 
tive in organic evolution.” 
The beginning of evolution is variation, and 
societary variations arise from individual initiatives 
unconscious or conscious. If these are effective 
and are diffused, obtaining group-approval, they 
become part of the body of folk-ways or of a 
thought-out social policy. As social phenomena 
they are subjected to societary selection, which 
the author proceeds to analyse. There are many 
forms of group-conflict and inter-group conflict, 
from internecine life and death struggle at the one 
extreme to the antagonism between class-codes 
at the other, but, on the whole, the automatic 
societal selection is on a different plane from 
natural selection. For one thing, there is “a lack 
of that precision, exactitude, and finality char- 
acteristic of a nature-process.” 
Elimination is much less thorough and survival 
is in virtue of social rather than biological 
superiorities. But emerging out of these auto- 
matic forms of societal selection there is deliberate 
rational selection, which works by rational 
criticism of the arts of societal self-maintenance. 
The practical difficulty arises, however, that forms 
of societal selection may run counter to natural 
selection by favouring the survival of those who 
are, when judged by biological standards, rela- 
tively less fit. Under the title of “counter- 
selection,” this difficult problem is shrewdly dis- 
cussed, the author’s general position being that a 
certain amount of counter-selection is, at present 
at least, inevitable, and that it is to be met by 
more carefully thought-out rational selection. 
Thus the dysgenic results of war may be met or 
mitigated by more attention to practicable 
eugenics. 
Turning to societary transmission—notably of 
the folkways which persist from generation to 
generation—the author points out that psychical 
qualities are transmitted in the biological sense, 
but much more is effected by tradition, both by 
positive inculcation and by unconscious imita- 
NO. 2391, VOL. 95} 


tion. The resultant of societary variation, selec- 
tion, and transmission is adaptation, which the 
last quarter of the book illustrates. The author 
seeks to show that folkways and institutions are 
established as adaptations to particular settings 
in time and place. In the Eskimos, for instance, 
he finds ‘“‘a primitive and isolated society, a survey 
of whose mores indicates beyond question the 
close adaptation of the maintenance-mores to 
environmental conditions, and the consistency of 
the other mores with those of self-maintenance.” 
Another illustration worked out is that of two 
types of frontier-societies, the one in the tem- 
perate zone and the other in the tropics. Finally, 
the author uses “the modern great city as the 
best example at hand after which to outline the 
adaptation of the mores to the artificialised 
environment.” 
The whole book is interesting and will be 
valuable to those who wish to clear up their ideas 
in regard to “societal evolution.” There is at 
times a tendency to a discursive exposition of the 
obvious, and to what seems to us an unnecessary 
amount of quotation from the late Prof. Sumner 
(of whose work this essay is regarded by the 
author as an extension); the reader may also be 
troubled a little by the reiteration of the words 
““folkways” and ‘‘ mores,’’ and by the occurrence 
of others even less familiar, such as “accultura- 
tion,’’ ‘‘ ethnocentrism,’’ and ‘‘ aleatory,’’ but 
these are trifles compared with the fact that Prof. 
Keller has made a stimulating contribution to- 
wards answering the question: How does evolu- 
tion in societary forms agree with, and differ 
from, evolution among organisms, both in itself 
and in the factors that bring it about? 
(3) Mr. Reinheimer’s book is marked by 
seriousness of purpose, width of inquiry, and a 
grasp of several important truths; it is marred by 
a lack of scientific precision and restraint, and 
by a litter of quotations of diverse values which 
have not always been understood. The author 
discourses at length on many subjects, such as 
genetics, of which he betrays inadequate under- 
standing, and we think that he writes a lot of 
nonsense about the ‘‘symbiogenetic ” potency of 
““love-foods ’”—which are the by-products of plant- 
reproduction, such as dates, raisins, bananas, 
legumes and cereals, with milk and eggs thrown 
in. 
““To eat pork, hare, and shellfish is certainly 
not in accordance with the grand symbiotic divi- 
sion of labour which has established itself as the 
normal rule of life, demanding cross-feeding in 
the best interests of this symbiosis. Such habits 
are, on the contrary, opposed to the normal order, 
and result in an inferior physiological currency 
establishing itself at the expense of a nobler cur- 
